


Challenged

by darksylvia, emer3 (darksylvia)



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-10-20
Updated: 2002-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darksylvia/pseuds/darksylvia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/darksylvia/pseuds/emer3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael wishes away his sister Mireia to the Goblin King. Things don't go quite according to anyone's plans, however, when the Goblins stage a rebellion, Mireia insists on learning magic, and Michael makes up his own rules. (This is mostly Gen, with just a hint of Jareth/ofc. Mostly it is about the Labyrinth. Also, I updated it slightly, since I had not looked at it since 2002  and I couldn't help myself.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mireia at the Castle

Jareth, Goblin King, Master of the Labyrinth, lounged on his throne and absentmindedly watched his newest challenger pass through the first door into the labyrinth. He was slightly bored.

The boy had wished his sister away and been as surprised as anyone when Jareth had actually shown up and granted his wish. But Jareth could see that this newest specimen wasn't going to make it. After watching so many people try their luck in his Labyrinth, Jareth had become quite good at recognizing the serious threats from the silly children. This boy didn't have the sense he was born with. He'd already taken three hours to get inside. He'd tried to walk around the perimeter, not realizing that there _was_ no perimeter.

Children these days really couldn't be expected to have any respect for magic.

Sarah had been an unexpected exception - she'd complained so much that he hadn't really expected there to be such strength and stubbornness underneath, and it had caught him off guard. He'd been half in love with the idea of her resistance. But once she was back in her familiar safe little world she'd forgotten all about him. She wasn't the first to get through the labyrinth. No - she merely had the distinction of being the first whom he hadn't predicted.

There had been knights with shining swords and armor, there had been wise men who knew very little, and desperate fools. Jareth had always been bound to give a gift of the winner's choosing to whomever could defeat the labyrinth. Many challengers had not come seeking lost siblings at all, but simply a chance at gaining a wish.

And there had only been three who'd survived to the end. But Jareth did not want to think about them now.

"Michael didn't mean it," said a voice near his left elbow. The girl had been sitting quietly, almost vacantly, since he'd brought her here three hours earlier, and this was the first she'd said. He'd started to wonder if there was something wrong with her.

"Of course he did," replied Jareth without looking away from his crystal. "But it hardly matters now. What's done is done. Even I can't change that, Mireia."

"Well, maybe he did a little bit," she conceded. "We _did_ have a fight. But he was just joking. We both like that book _Labyrinth_, and we'd memorized the speeches so that we could quote it at each other. We were only acting the scene, not actually trying to call you."

"Just because you didn't know I would appear does not make the words meaningless," Jareth countered, watching the boy Michael wander listlessly down the endless corridors at the beginning. She didn't say anything to that, and they sat in silence for another stretch of time.

"Do you have any books?" she asked, breaking the silence. Jareth sat up and slid his crystal around to the back of his hand where it promptly disappeared. Her eyes flickered after it, scanning his hand for signs of where it had gone. "Or you could teach me how to do that. It looks fun." He favored her with a small, cold smile, extended his hand towards her, and watched her reaction as the crystal ball rolled smoothly down his arm. She jumped in surprise, but both hands shot out quickly to catch it.

"Like so many things, I can't teach you unless you know already." He was happy to be distracted. Watching the less interesting challengers was so tedious. "Magic isn't just a snap of the fingers. It's mostly in your head." The goblins around their feet stirred, and some turned around to watch, snickering. She turned the crystal over in her hands, staring fiercely at it, as if she hoped to learn it's secrets simply by concentrating.

Mireia was maybe sixteen, Jareth decided. Old enough to be charmed, but young enough to question it. Old enough to use logic and reason, but young enough to accept the illogical. Sarah's age. It was quite a difficult age to control, as he'd found out the hard way.

She was still studying it intensely, when she flipped her wrist, and the globe disappeared from sight. Jareth did not betray his surprise with so much as a twitch, but that didn't change the fact that he was most shocked. She looked up and met his eyes. Then she rolled her wrist, and the ball reappeared in her palm.

"It's just slight of hand," she said into the listening Goblin-filled silence. "My uncle taught me. It's not real magic, though." She paused. "Will you teach me the real magic part?" Jareth gave himself a mental shake. Slight of hand. Not magic. He shed his shock.

"Not just now," he said briskly. He stood from his throne and beckoned her. "We have a little visit to pay before I can entertain my guest." He smiled in calm arrogance, moved his gloved hand in a complicated move, and suddenly a new globe appeared. She looked down quickly at the one resting in her hand. "Please, keep that one," he added.

She looked at it suspiciously, then shrugged and stuffed it into the pocket of her sweater, where it bulged strangely. Jareth dropped a hand lightly on her shoulder and brought them both abruptly to the boy.

****

Mireia could see that Michael was near tears. He looked dusty and vulnerable. She'd always felt quite protective of him - she'd nearly gotten into a fist fight with some kid at school over the names he called Michael. But she didn't think she could punch the goblin king. Luckily Michael was surprised out of the threatening tears by she and Jareth's sudden appearance directly in his path. Mireia was grateful. She didn't want to see him cry. It would make it all too real, and she was afraid she might cry with him if he started up.

"Not progressing very far, are we Michael?" Jareth asked in the same calmly, pleasantly voice Mireia was getting used to. Michael stared at the Goblin king sullenly. Mireia could see he was working out whether or not to insult him. He settled on silence and a righteous glare. "You could just give up now," Jareth reminded him persuasively. "I could send you back home this instant if you give the command, and the Labyrinth will be only a faded memory."

"No," Michael ground out. "Not without Mireia." His eyes darted to her, standing beside Jareth. She tried to smile encouragingly.

"Are you sure? I won't give you another chance. Your parents have started to look for you. Don't be stubborn."

"No," Michael said, and crossed his arms.

"As you will," said Jareth shortly. He turned on his heel, and his cloak swept out in front of Mireia, blocking her vision for a brief second. When it fell away, they were back in front of the throne. Jareth strode arrogantly out of the room without a word, and the Goblins scuttled hurriedly out of his way. She really did not want to become one.

Mireia sat down, annoyed, to think about how she was going to get herself out of this situation. She tried to remember anything useful from the book, but most of it had to do with getting through the labyrinth, and it was from the challenger's point of view, anyway.

Therein lay the problem. Michael wasn't going to figure out the Labyrinth on his own. It just wasn't going to happen. It wasn't that Mireia didn't have faith in him, or that he was stupid - the opposite in fact - it was that he didn't have the right kind of genius to bend around something as improbable as the Labyrinth. Give him a computer and a set of rules, and he could work miracles. He'd skipped two grades. But when it came to magic, to make-believe, to the chaotic side of creativity, he was helpless without Mireia as his guide. _If only it had been the other way around_, she thought. _I could solve this Labyrinth._

Mireia gave up that problem for the time being and turned her attention to the Goblin King. It was much easier to think sensibly about him when he wasn't there.

The book had told her he was arrogant, but it was another thing to see it in person. It wrapped him in a sort of powerfully dangerous air. It made it hard to stand up to him. It made him Royalty. But she'd have to figure out how to do just that - and she'd have to do it with nothing to back her. He may not have any power over Michael - Michael was the challenger. But he most definitely had power over Mireia. In less than ten hours she would be a Goblin, and no renunciation of his power was going to change that. So she'd have to find a different way, and she'd have to do it fast.

Thoughtfully, Mireia pulled the globe from her pocket and held it cupped in her palms. She knew it would be useful if she could just figure out how it worked...


	2. Michael in the Labyrinth

Michael gave into his tears as soon as Mireia and the Goblin King disappeared. It wasn't as if there would be anyone to hear him, he thought bitterly. They were angry tears, because he was very frustrated. He felt betrayed by the world in general. Everything he'd learned for the past twelve years of his life was proving false. The main lie, of course, was that magic did not exist. This was a notion that crumbled easily as soon as one came face to face with a Goblin King and his Labyrinth. Mireia had always known it existed, but Michael had been sure it didn't. It had been fun to play along, and Mireia was a creative and exciting sister for a geeky little boy who didn't know how to pretend. But he'd never suspected that the pretend might overlay a much more real - and much more sinister - reality.

He couldn't cry forever, however, because no matter how betrayed he felt, at some point there were no more tears. He wiped his eyes, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and stood up straighter. This world didn't play by rules he understood. But he was nothing if not adept at learning new rules. And a world that was held together as strongly and neatly as this had to have some, even if they didn't make sense to him. He had read Mireia's Labyrinth book, after all. He knew nothing would be as it seemed here. So the first rule was: you can't trust your senses.

He looked at the wall in front of him. It didn't seem to have a door. But then again, he wasn't trusting his eyes. Or his sense of touch. What could he trust, then? He laid his hands flat on the wall, and gave a sigh of despair. This was ridiculous. Why can't there be a door here? he asked himself silently. "I just want a door," he said out loud. He was about to turn away when he realized that his hands were no longer touching stone, but wood. It didn't look any different than the rest of the stone walls. He slid his hands down cautiously over the wood, and found a door knob at elbow level. Barely daring to breath, he turned the knob and pulled.

The piece of the wall swung out easily. Inside appeared to be an overgrown garden. Plants spilled all around the door frame and the garden was lit green from filtered sun rays. Michael stepped inside and quietly shut the door, knowing he had discovered the second rule: the only thing you could really trust was your own will.

He walked away from the wall into the garden. It was like wandering in an uneven green tunnel. And it was very warm. The ground underneath was springy with grass and moss. He walked the only way he open to him, the foliage making a path. After a few minutes of this, the plants began to widen out until they formed a sort of circle. Sunlight spilled down in the center of it, and illuminated a fountain. The water burst upward and then fell back with the rest like little diamonds.

Michael approached the edge of the pond and looked inside. Beautiful, rainbow-colored fish swam around beneath the surface. They looked just like fat goldfish, except for their exotic colors. He could not see to the bottom of the fountain, the water stretched downwards until it was lost in greenish darkness. He wondered if he dared drink out of it. He reached out and caught a handful of it as it fell from mid-air. At that same moment, a red fish leapt up and over his hand.

"Drink!" it shouted happily, as it fell back to the water and disappeared with a splash. Then a purple one shot out of the water.

"Imbibe!" it squeaked, just as gleefully, and disappeared below the surface. Next came a bright yellow fish.

"Guzzle!" it hollered at him. And then came a green, followed by a pink, and last an orange one. They all urged him to drink. He looked at the water leaking between his fingers. Anything that so badly wanted him to do something in this labyrinth was probably trying to trap him. He let the water fall regretfully back in with the rest, and resigned himself to an uncomfortable trip through the labyrinth. If he wasn't going to get water, he most certainly couldn't expect food. Thirteen hours without food! Was that even possible? Michael had never gone so long without food. But he supposed it had to be done. Mireia was waiting up at the castle, and he knew she most certainly did not want to become a goblin. He passed the fountain and continued along the green path on opposite side.

Soon the path narrowed again, and it kept narrowing until he was closed in on all sides with thick foliage. Beyond that he had to stoop, and finally he found himself crawling. It was dark and stuffy underneath so many plants, and his heartbeat picked up, and he felt like he might suffocate. He was very relieved when the narrow tunnel of greenery curved and he could see a bright spot ahead. Upon getting closer, he saw it was an opening into a small courtyard. He spilled out onto the wobbly flagstones, nearly over-run with moss.

It was a relief to stand. He was still hedged in on all sides by the tall, plant-covered walls, but he could stand up, and the sky was open. Unfortunately, the path seemed to end here. It was just a stony rounded little dead-end. He thought maybe he'd better turn back, looked down at the tunnel he'd come through, but found it gone. The stone and greenery was smooth and uninterrupted. Michael took a deep breath to calm the sudden panic that threatened to arise in the pit of his stomach. He shoved his dark hair out of his face and pushed his glasses up, so that he could glare more convincingly at the walls. He doubted that what had worked for the first door would work again, but he decided to try it anyway. He placed his hands on a section of wall and said aloud, "Open." He willed it. He demanded it. But nothing happened. He stood back from the wall and tried to think of something else. Maybe he could find enough purchase to climb?

"You'll never get out that way," said a voice behind him. He turned so quickly he almost tripped over his own feet. A few feet behind him stood a tall woman. She was wearing little more than a few strategically placed scarves, her red mouth curved up in the patronizing sort of smile that was usually reserved for children. Glossy dark hair fell in perfect waves to her waist. She was barefoot. Michael swallowed hard. He didn't really understand what made the older boys as girl-crazy as they were, but he wasn't completely oblivious, either, and this woman was very, very beautiful. He felt small and scruffy. He felt terribly young. "Perhaps you'd like to come with me," she offered, her voice a little husky and a little sweet, like the best song he'd ever heard. "I have a pavilion not far from here, and there's a fairly straight path leading from it to the Labyrinth's center. That way," she gestured to her left and suddenly there was a path. "The center is your destination, I think?"

Michael blinked. It was not that the path appeared out of nowhere. It had been there all along, and yet Michael hadn't seen it seconds ago. It was as if his eyes had been constantly looking in the wrong direction. It was like trying to find his watch and discovering it had been on the same nightstand he'd stared at a million times.

He considered her offer. They were nowhere near water, and he wasn't on a ship, but he thought this woman was probably what Mireia would call a siren. Nobody had hair that perfect, not even the women in hair commercials. On the other hand, he didn't much of a choice. There was nowhere else to go. The woman was too convenient to be anything but a trap, but then again, so was the dead end he's been in a few seconds ago.

"Yes please," he said, taking a few steps towards the opening, watching her wearily.

"I won't bite," she said laughing. "At least, not until you're a few years older." She led the way, hips swaying and scarves flying. Michael wondered whether he should be averting his eyes from the amount of flesh that showed with each step she took, but he did not want to lose her. He settled on focusing on the back of her head. The continued on out of the stone circle.

Unfortunately, staring at the back of her head caused him to miss the large hole in the path that the woman had easily stepped over. He pitched feet first into it with a yelp.

The woman turned and could be heard to say, "Well, damn. There goes dinner," After which she turned into a rather large spider and walked liquidly away. Michael might have been relieved to see how he had avoided being dinner, but he was rather distracted by the floor he'd just hit.

He sat up with a small groan and rubbed his arm. It wasn't broken but he'd bent it back to a strange angle and it felt pulled. Moving it just a little caused a sharp pain. That meant that he couldn't climb out, even if there had been a convenient way to do so, which there was not.

He got slowly to his feet trying to move his arm as little as possible. It was quite a lot harder than it seemed. Every other muscle movement seemed to jerk his arm. His head throbbed a little bit. As if things couldn't get worse, his stomach started to protest about the lack of food. Michael reached into his pocket to see if he'd any candy. The packet of mini-oreos he found there almost made him cry in relief. He tore them open eagerly, ignoring the pain in his arm, and hurriedly ate half of them. He reluctantly put the rest away for later. Turning slowly, he looked around him in the dim light. He was in a pit. It wasn't very wide, but it was quite deep.

Then he had an idea. He thought - hoped - that his first hypothesis about willing things worked. The woman had been able to unveil a passage with just a wave of her arm, rather like he had with the first door, though she lived here and he did not. Still, maybe he could _find_ a passage out, learn to see it. Maybe he'd been trying the wrong spot in the greenery above. It made a strange sort of sense that the Labyrinth would only allow it in certain spots. Otherwise challengers would just be able to go straight through to the center.

Michael scuffed the floor with his shoe and was delighted to find out it was dirt, not stone. In a fit of sudden inspiration and thinking of Hoggle's oubliette, he knelt and drew a circle around himself in the dirt. Then he paused and felt a little flicker of panic. What should come next? It was just a circle in the dirt, not a door. This was stupid. He sighed and closed his eyes, feeling a wave of helplessness roll through him.

No. Mireia as a goblin was not acceptable. He clenched his teeth and thought for a moment. Maybe it needed a secret password like... "Open sesame?" he tried. No, that was dumb and completely the wrong culture for the Labyrinth.

Then, without thinking too hard about why he was doing it, he lowered his fist and knocked on the floor three times.

On the third knock, a bright line of light appeared where he'd drawn the circle, and the inside of it, where before there had been dirt was really a metal manhole cover. Hardly daring to breathe, he pried at the edges and managed to lift it up. What he saw gave him vertigo. It was the sky. He grasped the edges and leaned upside down into it. Except that as soon as he was halfway through, gravity reversed itself and he found he was climbing out of a hole instead of diving through it.

Triumph flooded him for a brief dazzling moment and then abruptly sputtered and died.

He was surrounded by six strange-looking creatures with the bodies of men and the heads of horses. All of them were pointing the business end of some very sharp spears directly at his chest.


	3. Mireia and the Goblins

Mireia had gotten no further with the globe. It was perfectly clear, perfectly round, and perfectly ordinary. It made pretty colors when she held it up to the light, but other than that, there was no change in its appearance at all. She had been trying to look in on Michael like the Goblin King has obviously been doing before his abrupt exit. Around her, the goblins ignored her. Some napped or squabbled over unknown goblin things. Sometimes a few would leave or a few more would enter. Each time Mireia looked up anxiously to see if it was an imposing figure in elegant clothes and spiky hair, but was disappointed only to see more of his misshapen subjects.

At some point she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew she was flinching awake. Something was poking her in the back. She sat up and turned groggily around. As far as she could tell, the creature standing there was some sort of very old goblin. It was thoroughly wrinkled, even by goblin standards, and it was holding a small pointy object that looked to Mireia like an oversized chop stick. It nudged her again in the chest, and said, "Move," in a surprisingly British accent. Mireia found it was hard to be intimidated by a chop stick.

"Why?" she asked, batting away the stick.

"This is MY spot," it said quite clearly.

"Your king didn't seem to mind that I was here," she retorted.

"Pah!" it hissed. "Jareth won't mind anything very much longer...he'll...." and the rest was lost in an indecipherable mumble. This sounded unnecessarily cryptic to Mireia. On the other hand, she had no personal reasons to uphold Jareth's authority, given that she would be one of his goblins herself shortly if she did not come up with something to do about it first. She found herself curious about the unquestionably disrespectful tone of voice. What did the King do with rebellious goblins?

"How come?" she asked, not moving from her spot.

"How come what?" it asked, trying to yank its stick from her grasp.

"How come he won't mind anything much any longer?" she replied.

"Because he won't be here for much longer," the thing said.

"Where will he be?" she asked, tightening her hold on the stick.

"Nowhere!" it said and heaved. Mireia let go and watched as the goblin flew backwards. She suddenly understood why Jareth liked kicking them when he was frustrated. It was quite comic to watch it fall to the foot of the throne with a shriek. It did not get a chance to retaliate, however, because at that moment Jareth came striding in.

He was magnificently attired now in purple and black velvet with spiky bits sticking out in contrast to his hair. He stepped heedlessly over the prone goblin.

"Ah, Mireia," he said, smiling in her direction in a way she didn't completely like.

"Yes?" she said cautiously.

"Your brother has been captured by some of my subjects, and he only has eight hours left." He paused to give her a grave look, smile melting away, his eyes appearing strangely fierce. "Would you like to surrender for him? I'll give you only one chance, just as I gave him." The smile returned and widened to form a generous, persuasive look. "At your word, he could be back at home this instant. Give me the command, and I will end this nonsense now."

This news and offer gave Mireia pause. Michael was captured, and Mireia didn't kid herself that whatever had captured him probably wasn't something pleasant. And he was her little brother. Shouldn't she bravely send him away in exchange for herself? On the other hand, Michael would be furious and sad. He'd have to live with the knowledge that she'd given herself up to save him, and Mireia suspected that that knowledge would be terrible to bare.

"He would, of course, not remember any of this," Jareth continued, as if reading her thoughts. "At home once more, he would not remember having a sister, just as your parents will not remember having a daughter. They will go on with their lives, and you will stay here."

This caused another struggle to break out with in Mireia. It was a horrible, deep, instinctive struggle. It reminded her of the few times when she'd been very angry with her parents or her brother and spitefully wished she was dead just so they would feel bad about it. Now she wasn't angry, but she had a cold weight in her stomach that told her she very much did not want her family to forget about her as if she'd never existed. But how could she leave Michael to imprisonment and perhaps injury or death when she had the power to send him home at least? She wasn't in any immediate danger--becoming a goblin was a notion that still horrified her--but she'd be alive.

Jareth was watching her closely as she dithered. Either way the decision was unacceptable to her, and the Goblin King watching her wasn't helping. He did not demand an answer, or try and rush her decision with words--he simply stood and watched intently, something that was proving more effective than anything he could have said. The same arguments for both sides cycled through her head again and again, still giving her no resolve for one path or the other. She wondered if she was a coward, and at the same time knew that even if she was, she simple couldn't do it--she couldn't give her brother up, and couldn't surrender herself, either.

She was still pondering her terrible choice when the large flag stones underfoot gave an ominous rumble. Jareth took his gaze off of her and whipped around to see what was causing it. The goblins sat up and stirred from all their different hiding places around the throne. The rude one with the chop-stick stood up and grinned nastily at her, as if to say "See!"

"An earthquake?" Mireia asked, not sure if she was actually expecting an answer. The goblins tittered and Jareth did not condescend to reply. Instead, he took two steps forward where he suddenly became a large white owl and glided quickly into the sky.

Mireia looked around at the tittering goblins, knowing that she didn't have time to savor the relief of not having to make her decision. The ground rumbled slightly again, and this seemed to aggravate the goblins. Chopstick (as she'd dubbed him in her thoughts) leapt onto the throne and started to wave his weapon around trying to direct the confused swarm of goblins. More seemed to be rushing into the room by the second. They did not look very friendly--and weak or not, with this many of them, she could at least be caught in a stampede, if they could hurt her no other way. She crept behind the throne and then began edging her way along the wall towards the rough doorway that she'd seen Jareth disappear through earlier in the day.

Chopstick seemed to be stirring up the crowd. Her own inadvertent pun made her wince, even as she tried to slip out of what was unquestionably the first ever Goblin revolutionary meeting. She could hear unfamiliar epitaphs being chanted in many different little groups all around the room. Trying to slide past one group of particularly dirty looking fellows, she caught the distinct words "Down with the King!" That cheer was picked up by others and soon the whole room was shouting it at the top of their lungs.

One goblin saw her as she dashed through the doors and a second later, she heard the skittering of small feet behind her. She ran faster.

Jareth wasn't precisely her favorite king, but she didn't think she'd like the new leadership any better. She realized, while she was dashing in and out of the shadows down the hallway, that although Jareth was very definitely ruthless and dangerous, he had a certain fairness--he had rules that he ordered his business by. Mireia was willing to bet that the goblins had no such order.

As she reached the end of the hallway, she was faced with two doors. She picked the left one for no reason at all. She pulled the heavy wooden door open and stepped through quickly, getting a sense of a lot of light and space, before tugging the door shut behind her as fast as she could pull something so heavy. She turned, panting and jumpy, to look out at the room. Before her lay the Room of Stairs, where the girl in the book had had her final moment with Jareth. She knew, even before she tried it, that the door behind her would not open.


	4. Michael and the Minotaurs

At first, Michael's mind went completely blank. He simply did not know how to process the fact that he was currently surrounded by strange creatures armed with spears.

Then it made up for it's original blankness by kicking into high gear. He wondered fleetingly if he could just drop back down through the hole. But there was no way out of the hole besides this--the one he'd made. He doubted his destination would change no matter where he drew the circle. So instead, he raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

One of the creatures prodded him in the shoulder, and together they all herded him away from the hole across a large smooth expanse of dirt. He raised his eyes to find that the dirt was the floor of a stadium - a Colosseum - and that it was full of spectators.

And that is when Michael saw the beast awaiting him in the center. It was being held down by multiple heavy-looking chains looped over its back and around its legs, with one of the original creatures at each end, struggling to keep their grips on the chains. Michael stopped walking and was prodded harshly.

"Look," said Michael desperately as he continued haltingly forward, so swamped with fear that his limbs did not want to work correctly. "I won't be much of a show. If you put me near that thing it will all be over in a few seconds. I don't have much entertainment value. Maybe I could do something else?" They ignored him. When he saw that talking wasn't going to do him any good, he shut his mouth in order to conserve the energy he might need in a few moments to run away very fast. He tried not to look up at his coming doom too closely--but it was nearly impossible not to. For one thing, it took up a large part of his field of vision.

It had an elephant's trunk. But its feet were large hooves, not flat-footed wrinkly tree trunks like and elephant's. And it had shaggy yellow fur. Ugly and also seemingly very angry. Michael supposed he would be, too, if he were taken prisoner by some pesky little creatures that he should have been able to smash. Thoughts of smashing did not do Michael any good.

The creatures seemed just as wary of it as Michael was. They advanced cautiously, prodding him in front of them. Then there was a moment when everyone seemed to be waiting for something. His captors stood still with their spears forming a sharp wall at his back, and the others struggled to hold the beast's chains. Something bumped softly against Michael's foot and he spared a glance down at it. It was a small glass globe. He wanted to bend down and pick it up, but he didn't think the minotaurs would let him. He risked a glance back. They weren't even looking at him--their attention was riveted on the struggling beast. As quick as he could, he ducked down and scooped up the globe. He hid it in his palm against his side. His movement had jerked his guard's attention back to him, but he didn't think they'd seen the globe.

Michael wasn't really letting himself acknowledge it either. He didn't know where it had come from, but all his suspicions pointed to something improbable. He figured that whatever it was and wherever it came from, it couldn't make his situation any more horrible than it was. At worst, he could pelt a guard in the head with it and make a desperate escape.

Then suddenly, the waiting was over. Horns blew from somewhere in the surrounding arena, echoing off of the walls. That was apparently what everyone had been waiting for. His guards gave him a parting prod in the back and he heard their quickly retreating footsteps behind him. A second later, the others that held the chains on the beast let go and quickly ran for the walls. And Michael found he was frozen.

His blood was pounding through him at double speed and he could feel sweat breaking out everywhere. He couldn't think of what to do. Run? Sure and have the thing come charging after him now that he was free. Stand still? That just meant he'd have to wait to be gored or trampled. What was he expected to do, anyway? Fight a gigantic elephant-thing? He had no weapons--nothing that would harm even another human, and he knew what would hurt a human. What was he possibly going to do to this thing?

He shifted his grip on the globe, swallowing a small noise of fear firmly back down, and noticed that the globe was starting to get soft in his hands. At first he thought it was just sweat, making him think it was softer, but then he realized it was sort of half-melting, half-evaporating. Now what? When it was completely gone, there was a sudden loud voice that shouted into his ears.

"Damned savages! They have no right! I shouldn't be here!" It took Michael a long and stunned moment to realize that the voice was coming from the beast. It came with each panting trumpet of the thing's elephant trunk. Licking his lips, Michael decided he had nothing to lose.

"Um...Hello!" Michael called up to it, hating the wobbly uncertainty in his voice. "Can you understand me?" The trunk stopped flailing wildly and the curses died down. He was being regarded with close scrutiny.

"You didn't, perchance, talk, did you?" the think trumpeted somewhat more softly, somehow conveying surprise.

"I did," said Michael. "I just started to understand you."

"How?"

"I don't know." He paused. "A magic globe, I guess. I found it on the ground."

"Those things don't just appear," said the thing, rather sharply. "You must have a few powerful friends."

"I don't," said Michael. "I'm just trying to get to the center of the labyrinth and these things captured me."

"Ah." It gave an approximation of a nod. "I don't suppose you want to be here anymore than I do, right?" It swiveled both eyes to peer at him sharply.

"No!" said Michael. "I climbed out of a hole in the ground and here I was." The thing appeared to be thinking.

"Well, look," it said at last. "I can knock down the guards if you can figure out how to open the gate. I'm not made to work that kind of thing. Hands are the only thing that work for hand made gates."

"I'll try," said Michael. "It might be locked or something. I'm not exactly from around here."

"Well, we've got to do something soon. They're starting to notice that this isn't going correctly." The trunk gestured to the groups of minotaurs that had scuttled so quickly away a short time ago. Michael saw that they were muttering urgently together.

"Alright," said Michael. "Which gate?"

"The one behind me. I don't think it's very hard to open. The minotaurs didn't do much to it. You run for it and I'll keep them off of your tail."

"Okay." He looked around the beast's body, sighted the gate and, after a deep steadying breath, started running. Behind him he could hear shouts and the sound of many feet. But the sound cut off and was replaced with the sound of shouts. More feet sounded, and Michael could hear the clinking of chains. He put his head down and ran faster. The arena was big. He ran full speed up to the giant doors, and quickly scanned the surface for knobs, handles, bars, _anything_. Down at the bottom he finally located one of the sliding floor locks that people used in shops, only these ones were much bigger. He yanked one up with all his might, taking some skin off with it, and then did the same with the other. Then he leaned against them as hard as he could and felt them give a little. They were now unlocked, but still incredibly heavy, maybe weighted in place. Michael didn't think he'd be able to move them enough to escape through.

The commotion started to head his way, and he looked around to see the beast come charging for the doors, shedding guards on its way.

"Move!" it trumpeted at him. "I'll push it open!"

Michael leapt hurriedly out of the way and watched as the beast flung both doors open wide with its shear size alone.

"Come ON!" he heard through the doorway, and with a last glance back at the prostrate guards littering the sandy floor of the arena, he dashed through the open gates into freedom. Well, not precisely freedom, he amended. But certainly more freedom than he'd had as a sacrificial prisoner.

As soon as he was out the door, a yellow-furred trunk swooped down and picked him up. He was deposited in more yellow fur on the thing's back and then forced to hold on to it quickly when the beast set off at a swift run. Michael crouched low over its back and tried to duck tree branches and other assaults from the foliage.

After a while, Michael's companion slowed and then stopped. Michael, feeling blank and wrung-out, gingerly slid off and landed shakily on his own two feet. They faced each other.

"What are you?" They both asked the same question at the same time, and then stared at each other in surprise.

"I'm uh...a human? My name is Michael," he volunteered.

"Oh. You're smaller than I thought humans would be. I'm a sand elk." It paused. "My name is Mooreland."

"Thanks for the rescue, Mooreland," said Michael. "I'd never have been able to out run them."

"Well, I wouldn't have been free at all if you hadn't unlocked the gates. It was only fair." Silence descended, and for a brief panicked moment, Michael thought that the melting globe had worn off and that they wouldn't be able to understand each other any more. But then Mooreland spoke.

"What are you doing inside the labyrinth?" it asked.

"I'm trying to save my sister. I wished her away accidentally. I've probably only got eight or so hours left." Michael tried not to show how afraid he was that he wouldn't get there in time.

"I have to get to the center myself," said Mooreland. "The only way out is through, and after those minotaurs captured me out on the sands, I knew I'd have to get through the Labyrinth to get home. Isn't there a king there that grants wishes to anyone who gets through?"

"I don't know about wishes. The book we have--me and my sister--says that I have to get to the castle of the Goblin King within thirteen hours or my sister turns into a goblin. She doesn't want to be a goblin."

"Well," said Mooreland. "We might as well travel together. I'll need your help for any other doors we might encounter, and you'll need my help in case we have to run or trample a few minotaurs again. How about it?"

"Yes!" said Michael, enthusiastic about trampling future minotaurs. "Great idea. Um. Which way should we go first?"

They both looked around. The forest than they had been crashing through was still obviously part of the Labyrinth. It didn't so much have proper walls like the first part had had, but the trees banded together and grew so close that there was still a definite path. All they could really do was follow it. And from where they were it went three ways. The trees were too tall to see over and get their bearings anyway, and Michael doubted if seeing the castle would help very much. Direction hadn't been a very big help so far.

"Not back the way we came," said Mooreland. "So right or left?" They looked from one to the other. One was broad and clean and easy-looking. Like a walk up a main street. The other looked disused, dirty, and dark. Michael could see definite thorns and it would probably be uncomfortable for Mooreland more than him. It was obviously the less-pleasant one, but Michael recalled a poem that was one of Mireia's favorites. It had definite opinions of roads like these.

"See you not yon narrow road  
So thick beset with thorns and briars?  
That is the path of righteousness,  
Though after it few inquire.  
And see you not yon broad, broad road  
Away across the lily leaven?  
That is the path of wickedness  
Though some call it the road to heaven," Michael quoted.

Mooreland swung his massive head to look at him. "Is that the way it goes?" he asked, rhetorically. "It makes sense. They wouldn't just give us a straight and even road to walk along. It must be a trap. So we take the narrow road." The both looked at it in distaste. It looked nastier by the second. If Michael concentrated he thought he could see spider's webs strung across the middle of the path. And thorns--the poem was right--there were definite thorns.

"I guess we'll have to," sighed Michael. "I'll lead. I've got more fur. You'd be scratched to bits." He grasped a long stick in his trunk and started to pick his way delicately into the tangle, sweeping webs out of they way with his stick as they went. Michael found it funny that Mireia probably wouldn't have picked this road. She hated spiders.


	5. Mireia in the Room of Stairs

Moving her head slowly up, she tried to follow the many winding staircases with her eyes. It occurred to her that this room was also a labyrinth--although a different sort than the one outside. Looking at it's complexity, she began to wonder about the mind of the man who'd made it. It would take a genius to make it, she decided. Perhaps an evil genius, but a genius all the same. She supposed there was nothing else to do but go through it, although she suspected that Michael would have been better at this one than she was, what with all the angles and scientific sort of illusions, instead of magical ones. Cruel fate! she thought. We've each been put in the wrong labyrinth.

She looked at the two staircases leading away from the small area in front of the door. Right or left? Well, left hadn't done her a great deal of good the first time, so she supposed right was just as good a choice as any. It annoyed her that Michael would probably have had a perfectly calculated idea of which way to take, while she was relying purely on a whim. On the other hand, he was currently captured by a vague something in Jareth's Labyrinth and probably wasn't enjoying himself, either. She refused to let herself think too deeply about that. It would do no good to get weepy about her little brother before she could do anything about it. She'd just have to get out of this room, then out of the castle, and then go find him.

She trotted down the stairs, looking around at the options that presented themselves, and keeping well away from the edge. When she'd started up another staircase, it occurred to her to look back and check where she'd come from. That turned out to be a mistake. The door she'd come through was now mysteriously upside down. _Nothing for it but to go on until I get to another door_, she thought, annoyed. So she kept on with the staircase she was climbing--or was it descending?, occasionally aiming towards a new distant door and turning off on a new stairway, only to find that the door had suddenly gotten behind her somehow. Before long she was cursing Jareth's name roundly.

"Damn evil geniuses," she muttered. "So caught up in their own cunning that they make dumb rooms like this. Stairs should lead either up or down, not both on one side!" By that point she'd stopped aiming for doors altogether and decided that maybe if she just wandered arbitrarily she'd eventually get to one by accident. It was certainly worth a try. So she watched her feet go up and down the stairs and gave herself up to finding new and insulting names for a certain Goblin King.

Luckily she had the presence of mind to stop abruptly when she found that she was standing on one of the flat places found only in front of doors. She looked up and saw a beautiful sight: a big, grandly wooden door. Eagerly, she grabbed the handle and yanked. It refused to open. She looked at the door a little more closely and realized with a great sinking feeling in her stomach, that is was the very same door she'd entered by.

"Idiotic Goblin Kings obsessed with their own importance!" she said loudly as she gave the door another vicious pull.

"Why, what frightful sentiments," said a smooth British voice. Mireia whirled around and saw Jareth himself standing a few staircases above her.

"They're all true!" she said, glaring, not caring at that point if he had the power to turn her into a goblin instantly.

"I'm not so very idiotic, you know," he chided, not bothering to deny the rest. "For instance, I knew you'd run to this room when the goblins finally started their little rebellion. It seems to draw you all."

"'You all' who!" she asked, not sure whether to be relieved or annoyed. "And do you mean to tell me that you knew there was going to be a rebellion?" She peered across the room at him. He smiled silkily.

"All who have visited my domain find themselves in this room eventually. I have no idea why, even though I'm the one who created it." He brushed an imaginary speck of dirt off of one sleeve. "As for knowing about the goblin rebellion--of course I knew." His tone became mildly insulted. "What kind of king do you think I am? They stage a pathetic rally every couple of years at least. I simply wait for it to fizzle out, and then come back to continue ruling. Without the rebellion I would never get a holiday. And most of them are too drunk by the time I return to remember anything at all, much less that they challenged my rule. At least, they're smart enough not to say they remember it."

"For your information, I only came here because they were chasing me," Mireia informed him haughtily. The more politely calm he got, the more haughty she felt like being. "What were you going to do with me? Leave me to the goblins? The drunken goblins? What a horrible thing to do!"

"Well, yes," said Jareth in reasonable tones. "You'll be one shortly yourself. And in case you've forgotten, I'm not generally known for my sterling humanitarian qualities. I've been called much worse than 'horrible' during my rule."

"But you weren't really mean before!" Mireia blurted out before she could stop herself.

"Oh no?" he asked, quirking an elegant eyebrow. "I've obviously failed in my duties. Tell me, where was I lacking?"

"Well," she said slowly, embarrassed by her outburst. "You gave me a globe. And you told me you'd teach me magic if I could figure out how to start on my own. And I know you keep your word or no one would ever get through your Labyrinth." A slow smile curved across his mouth, and his eyes seemed to glint in amusement.

"I believe that you are the first to have noticed that last." The smiled faded a bit. "But I'll never have to teach you magic, because you'll never figure out how to start." He stopped speaking and began walking towards her, sometimes seemingly walking away or coming upside down, but eventually he alighted next to her. "Now, since you have utterly refused the company of the goblins, you are stuck with mine. I do not, however, intend to spend my holiday in here. Would you care to accompany me out of this room at least?"

"See," Mireia pointed out. "That was a nice offer."

"Nonsense. This room is monstrously hard to clean, and the Goblins can't be trusted to do it without getting lost. Cleaning magic is very tiring. So it's really selfishness that compels me to get you out of this room before you can tromp up and down _all_ of the staircases."

"Oh," said Mireia. He offered his arm, and she took it very gingerly, by her barest finger tips.

"Now, do try and keep up. If you let go, you'll get lost quite quickly." He set off up the first flight of stairs without waiting for a response, forcing her to trot after him for fear of letting go of his sleeve.

The stairs didn't exactly straighten out when Jareth walked them, but somehow they weren't so confusing anymore. Mireia was inclined to feel chagrined at how disarmingly easy the paths to the doors all looked now. Then, annoyed with herself for feeling embarrassed, she forced herself to remember how hard it had been before, wandering around for the better part of an hour. There was obviously some trick to it. She seemed to vaguely remember this staircase...hadn't it led over to that middle one instead of to the wall?

"Stop thinking about how confusing the room is, please, or I shall be forced to leave you here in order to save myself," said Jareth sternly, without turning to look at her. He didn't break his stride.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" Mireia demanded. "Can you read minds?" She asked that last with a twinge of unease. Magic powers were one thing, she reasoned, but if your enemy could read your mind, you were screwed. He could then just preemptively block all attempts she might make to get out of his clutches.

"No, I can not read minds, least of all yours," he replied, patiently. "But this room requires a certain positive frame of mind, if you will, and you are twisting it around again. Stop it at once." Mireia said nothing, but felt contrite, which annoyed her even more than feeling chagrined had. To distract herself from twisting the room again, she decided to ask Jareth a few questions. And this time he couldn't just go fly off in owl form when he didn't feel like fielding her inquiries.

"So who's made it through the labyrinth besides Sarah?" she asked conversationally. She'd had that question for years. She slanted a glance up at his intent profile.

"Why do you wish to know?" he asked, his steps even and rhythmic.

"Because I already know Sarah's story by heart. I want another Labyrinth story."

"I'm afraid you'll find them dreadfully tame after that one." There was a note of amusement in his voice.

"Please?" Mireia found that she wasn't above begging--but only for stories. "I like the Labyrinth. I want to know about the other challengers. Pretty please?"

He was silent for so long that Mireia thought he wasn't going to answer. And then he began speaking, his even melodic voice suited to a story teller's tones. His sentences fell into hypnotic, seductive, slantly rhyming sentences, and Mireia was lost in it just as surely as she'd been lost in his room of stairs, and as surely as Michael was lost in the outer labyrinth.


	6. Michael in the Bog

The righteous road got worse and worse. Michael began to question the wisdom of taking it. Maybe Jareth had been using a warped Labyrinth-style reverse psychology and they should have taken the easy road. Michael swept another spider web out of the way, and saw Mooreland's trunk reach over him to pick a branch out of the way.

When he got out of this, he was going to take a very, very long shower. He wasn't terrified of spiders like Mireia, but that didn't mean he had any particular affinity for them either. They had far too many legs. They looked sly and alien somehow and moved too fast for comfort. Michael hoped fervently that labyrinth spider bites weren't any worse than normal ones.

The road was getting darker, too, and Michael was fairly sure this was not his imagination. He asked Mooreland.

"Yes. The light is dimming. I'm not used to this. Out on the open sand there is always light."

"You can hold on to my shoulder if you want to," Michael offered. "We won't lose each other, that way." He felt a furry weight settle over his left shoulder.

As they went on, Michael became more and more certain that something bad was going to happen at any moment. The righteous road wasn't supposed to be easy. In fact, it should have been fraught with danger--or at least false alarms. But this road was entirely too quiet. Thorns and spiders were all he'd seen so far, and if that was all Jareth had to throw at them, Michael would need to reconsider the king completely. Or were they going the wrong way? But even if they were, what could they do? Go back and take the path other path? He doubted they'd be allowed to if it was even there any more.

Michael took two more steps and stopped abruptly. Did he feel a breeze? It was coming from the ground. He squinted down at the murky thicket covering the ground. There was a slight but definite wind seemingly coming from solid earth.

"Don't trust your senses," muttered Michael to himself.

"What is it?" asked Mooreland quietly.

"I don't know. A wind from the ground. I think it's a hidden hole." He cautiously edged a foot forward and tapped on the ground. It felt solid enough. "Do you think you could hold me around the middle and pull me up if the ground gives?" asked Michael.

"Yes." The trunk slid off of his shoulder and looped around his waist.

"Ok. Here I go." Michael stepped forward, and nothing happened--at first. Just as he was allowing himself a small victory breath, he felt something shift. And then the ground fell through--but not under Michael. A huge piece of mulch crumpled to nothingness right under Mooreland, and Michael was pulled down with him. He yelped and made a grab for the edges. A strangled sound came from Mooreland, who didn't dare let go of him for fear of losing him in the fall.

Then they were in free fall. Michael had never been very good at roller coasters. His stomach was crowding his ribs uncomfortably. He felt as if his whole body was being slowly crunched together and his mind gabbled tensely at him. And then it was over--they landed on fairly spongy moss and turf. Even more luckily, Michael was so shocked from falling that his limbs were quite loose. He sat up slowly, unclenched his teeth, checked vaguely for major broken bones and bruises, and then looked around for Mooreland.

The Sand Elk was standing hock deep in sludgy water. The smell and Mooreland's distraught howl hit him at the same time.

"Oh--oh, Shit!" exclaimed Michael with feeling. "Not the Bog of Eternal Stench!" He got slowly and carefully to his feet, taking care to stay well away from the bog edge. Each movement in the air brought a fresh--or a foul, depending on how you phrased it--lungful and Michael gagged. "This is terrible!" exclaimed Michael, and immediately regretted it. He shut his mouth and did his best to breath shallowly. It wasn't nearly enough.

The smell was loud--the way a fire engine is loud. It was like being shut in a room with a painfully piercing siren playing and no way to get out. His eyes watered and he found it incredibly hard to think about anything other than the stench. He rubbed his eyes clear and with an effort managed to look out to Mooreland, trumpeting his sorrow in short, despairing blasts.

"Mooreland!" shouted Michael. His only reply was a short wail. "We have to get out of here!" he tried again. He attempted to put his brain back in order. "Look!" he yelled. "You can ask the Goblin King to make the stench go away! I'm sure you can get out of the Labyrinth without having to wish yourself out! Otherwise, why would anyone ever come to ask the king for a wish?" There was a thoughtful silence.

"I suppose," said Mooreland, after a while. "And Perhaps my smell will help keep away enemies while we get to the center, as well." Michael brightened.

"That's a good idea! I'll bet no one's ever used the smell like that before!"

"I'm coming out. Stand well away," said Mooreland. Michael could hear the sound of thick water being sloshed out of the way. He backed up hurriedly and got behind a tree for good measure. He was fairly certain that any wish he made to the Goblin King would have to be in regards to his sister, and he did not intend to get even a drip of the Bog on him. Michael heard what could only be the sound of a large animal shaking himself off.

"Done?" asked Michael from safely behind the tree trunk.

"Yes," said Mooreland, sounding gloomy. "You can come out. What I wouldn't give for a nice mound of clean sand to roll in right now."

"Soon," said Michael as comfortingly as he could, while he picked his way around puddles of Bog water. His shoes would most likely have to be thrown out once he got home. The though of home brought the urgency of his quest slamming back down on to him. "Very soon," amended Michael. "Who knows how much time I've got left. Mireia can't become a goblin! Life won't be worth the hassle without her. Come on."

Michael led the way again, jumping over parts of bog, finding a way through patches of not-very-secure swamp grass. Mooreland, inspite of being covered in the stuff, was very determined not to have to step in it again, and was picking his own way even more carefully than Michael. Apparently, once Bogged, twice shy.

They trudged on. Michael kept their direction straight to the best of his ability, but he wasn't at all sure they weren't wandering in circles. He had very little say in that kind of thing in the Labyrinth. He was rather hoping for a bridge--even a rickety dog-guarded one--but he wasn't having any luck in that department, either, and the smell was giving him a headache.

"This all sounded a lot more fun in a book," he said to no one in particular.

"How did they get out of the Bog in your book, then," said Mooreland.

"There was a bridge with an annoying little terrier guarding it. That fell in, but Ludo called the rocks up and they formed a little rock bridge instead."

"Do you mean like that?" Mooreland gestured with his trunk. Sure enough, not ten feet from them, there was a small path to the edge of the Bog and a bridge made of stones to cross it.

"YES!" said Michael, half in answer and half in triumph. Michael hopped blithely--if carefully--across, each step, a rude noise issuing from each. Mooreland stepped across after him, not nearly as blithely and with a great deal more delicacy, but radiating just as much relief.

On the other side, the Bog gradually turned into forest. It was a misty rather dark forest, too, but to his infinite relief, he saw no Fierys. They had always frightened him in the book, much more so than the Goblins or their King, or even the Bog ever had. He hopped over a log and felt something squishy underneath his foot. He jerked away but leaned over to examine the ground. It appeared to be a half-rotten peach. He nearly laughed aloud.

"I'm not going to be gotten that easily, Jareth," he muttered.

"Did you say something?" asked Mooreland.

"Just taunting the Goblin King."

"Ah. That's probably not overly wise, but as he's responsible for the Bog, go right ahead." Michael pulled out his Oreos--which had miraculously stayed in his pocket but were mostly crumbs now--and ate the rest defiantly. He offered Mooreland a few, but Mooreland didn't seem to care for them.

They wandered on. There was no chance of getting separated now--Michael could tell exactly where Mooreland was by smell alone. It was on this walk that Michael realized for the first time how incredibly tired he was. During his other encounters he hadn't had time to think about it--with surviving and panicking and everything--but now that all they needed to do was stroll--quickly--through a forest, he realized that his feet were not happy. It reminded him of the time he and Mireia had spent the day at Disney World, determined to ride every last ride. There had been too much to do. Resting wasn't an option. He very much wanted to sit down now, but knew he couldn't afford to.

The trees became more sparse. Michael walked faster. They must be getting to its outer edges by now. Soon they'd see the plain of junk with the city and the castle towers rising above it and...

Michael halted abruptly. The trees had thinned out. The edge of the forest was a few feet away. And yet, there was no Goblin City in front of him. What he saw instead made him want to scream. The forest led right out into the endless corridors--at the beginning of the Labyrinth.

This couldn't be happening. Couldn't. The forest didn't lead to the beginning, he _knew_ this part.

"It's not fai--" he started, and then abruptly snapped his mouth shut.

"Are you alright?" asked Mooreland, coming up to stand beside him.

"Not really," said Michael, and sat down on a convenient root.

Then something occurred to him. Don't trust your senses. "Wait..." He stood back up, ignoring the complaints of his feet, and began walking towards the corridors.

He watched his leg swing out of the forest undergrowth and over the paving stones. But before it hit the floor, the air seemed to ripple a little. Suddenly, Michael could see that he was putting his foot down on dirt, not stone. Two steps more and he looked up. The towers of Jareth's castle rose up before him.


	7. Jareth's Story of Orion

"The first challenger to win his way through my Labyrinth was named Orion. This was quite some time ago, perhaps two hundred years or more. Orion was of the poorer class of his time and just barely into manhood, but so undernourished that he looked much younger than he was. His father was faceless and had left before Orion was even born. His mother was a drudge, a laundry maid, if I remember correctly. She became very sick, but they had no way of paying for a doctor--and there was little one could do for her anyway.

"Orion was determined that she not die. He had little enough chance of surviving with her, but an almost nonexistent one without her, and he did not even know if he wanted to stay alive with no one else in the world to care for.

"He sat by his mother's bed for three days, dozing when she slept, barely eating at all, using up all the meager fuel that had been meant to last the entire winter. On the eve of that third day, Orion made a wish. The wish was something that he'd heard many years ago when he was small, but he never knew just where it came from. Somewhere in the spaces between sleep and waking, he'd dreamt of The Labyrinth.

" 'I wish that the Goblins would come and let me challenge the Labyrinth for a wish," he said. So I followed the Goblins to Orion and his mother's small, rat infested room, and I offered to let him try my Labyrinth, as he'd requested. When I warned him that none had ever made it through before, he looked at me straight in the eyes and said, "I'll be the first, then."

"So I led him to the outer walls, showed him thirteen hours on my clock, and left him to meet Hoggle, much like Sarah did. Hoggle has always been in my employ to discourage the Challengers before they even start. It saves a lot of trouble. But if they simply can't be dissuaded, he shows them the door and goes back to waiting for other challengers--and killing Pixies. It's become something of a sport with him.

"Hoggle did his job, trying to talk the young Orion out of it, but the boy could not be persuaded. So he was shown the door and the endless corridor, and left to solve it on his own. He did not subvert any of my citizens like a certain later challenger would do. He received no help from the interesting peoples within my Labyrinth.

"Having had a thorough education in the filthy streets of his childhood, he knew that nothing and no one would be as it seemed, and acted accordingly. He drew his hand along the wall of the endless corridor and found one of the many passages inward. Skipping the first part altogether, because of that well chosen door, he went right to the hedge maze. I hadn't hired my door guards at that time, so he was simply left to choose between the two ordinary doors. Surprisingly enough, he chose the same door that Sarah would later choose. Wandering alone in the forest, he met the Fieries, and handled their high spirits considerably well.

"When they began dancing, Orion joined them, took the lead, and led them all on a merry chase through the woods. Since the Fieries won't go into any overtly dangerous areas, he used their behavior to judge whether or not he was going the correct way. Then at the edge of the forest, he fled--they never venture out from under the eves of the trees, though I'm sure Orion did not know that.

"Beyond the Fiery's forest lies a little-known part of my Labyrinth. The White Owls make a home there among ruined look-out towers built into the walls of the Labyrinth. It is where the original Goblin City lay, but no Goblin remembers so far back. Orion passed through this place.

"Understand that the White Owls are able to speak to anyone, regardless of language barriers. They rarely choose to say more than two or three words, however, and then only to make certain of a traveler's intent when passing through their territory. Upon inquiring after Orion's reasons, they were told the story of Orion's dying mother and his quest for a wish. They have no sympathy in the normal sense of the word, and they do not understand death the way that humans do, but they were impressed by Orion's fortitude, his dedication to what he'd set himself to do.

"And so they gave him a gift--they made it possible for him to understand the language of anyone he might come across, as they themselves could.

"Since guiding him through any part of the Labyrinth is against the rules of the Challenge, they could not offer him a guide without endangering his goal. He went on through their territory, to the junkyard before the gates of the Goblin city.

"For a man raised in slums and poverty, the junkyard did not look like a junkyard at all, but mountains upon mountains of treasure. However, the reason the junkyard holds such danger is that a person can get tied to their possessions, bowed over by the things they own until their worldly goods own them and bury them. Orion did not own anything. His one possession, aside from his clothing, was a small brass trinket that his mother had found in the Laundry of a rich person and had given to Orion for a birthday present when he was small. Presented with this direct reminder of his mother, he marched straight into the Goblin City without a glance backwards at the mountains of junk.

"I had, of course, been watching Orion's progress through the entire Labyrinth. He had played by the rules of the challenge, earning his way here, to the Goblin City, where the last test lay. No challenger had ever gotten so far, and I was curious as to what would happen exactly.

"He snuck past the guards at the first gate, and scaled the second one--I don't think the Goblins had even invented the mechanical guard at that time, but they were all alert by the second gate, so Orion climbed it instead. He dashed through the streets, running in the shadows of houses and down alleys, but always up hill, towards the castle.

"I had no need to call out the Goblins to fight him--the city and my castle should have done that naturally. Everything here is a test. So I simply watched from my tower with interest. He came unmolested through my streets, straight to the castle door. He knocked. I was surprised at this show of manners, but allowed the door to swing open for him. While he wandered the hallways of my castle, it worked hard to funnel him into the Room of Mirrors.

"This room shows you reflections of yourself, but they are distorted--they are you in different times, different spaces, different circumstances. They show how you are seen through other people's eyes. It's very confusing. One minute you may be looking at your normal reflection, but when you turn the corner, the person in front of you looks a complete stranger. I know very little of what he saw in there.

"The Room of Mirrors is in itself magic, and I have a harder time prying there than other places. The trick, of course, is to see through the illusions of your different selves. The way through, and the ultimate benefit of having gotten through, is that you will always see yourself in one way--the truest way--afterward, and no one may shake that. He consolidated the illusions and created his own. He made his idea of himself the reality and banished all the others.

"Once he'd passed that test and made it through the mirror maze, the castle led him to me. I received him in my throne room, with the Goblins laying around and watching Orion in blatant awe. Orion walked straight to me and wished for the life of his mother. He had earned his wish and I granted it easily. But no wish comes without a price, and even I cannot always know what that price is. I warned him of this and then sent him home.

"After that I looked in on him from time to time. I like to think that the first person to ever successfully Challenge the Labyrinth was a rather special person. Orion's mother made a miraculous recovery from her illness, but she had become blind and Orion had to support her since there was very little she could do, impaired as she was. With the gift of tongues that the White Owls had given him, he made himself invaluable to a certain diplomat and politician. Then he succeeded that diplomat in his position. He became a very gifted Orator and ambassador. Before long, he was able to support both himself and his mother in moderate comfort. Before she died they could have been termed rich.

"Orion also had a penchant for taking in street children. Since he'd been forced to lie about where he had come from in order to get his job in the first place, his peers merely thought that he was an eccentric philanthropist. In his will, he set aside his considerable fortune for a school for street children, which did very well and helped many people. Orion died at an old age, content, with eight grandchildren. He wrote of his travels in the Labyrinth, but I took the account when he died. I can't have every poor fool trying to make it through the Labyrinth.


	8. Mireia and the Path of Air

"And that was the story of Orion. The first ever to succeed in my Labyrinth." As Jareth finished, they came to a large marble doorway at the highest point of the Room of Stairs.

"That was a good story, Jareth," Mireia told him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied, leading them through the doorway. Mireia saw that they were on the highest ramparts of the castle. From here she could see all of the Labyrinth, stretched out in complicated detail below her. She dropped Jareth's arm and rushed forward so that she could lean out over the brick and stone wall, and try to see the Goblin City which must be sprawled at the foot of the castle. Before she could lean out quite far enough, she felt a hand grab the back of her shirt and wrench her easily away from the edge.

"You look much better having not smashed into the ground," said Jareth, relinquishing his hold on her shirt. Mireia scowled at him. Then something occurred to her, and she smiled brightly at him.

"That was another nice thing to do," she informed him.

"It's a rule," he said, eyebrows raised in an amused expression. "You're mine to protect until the thirteen hours are up. I won't allow you to become injured within that time." He frowned slightly at her. "Really. Babies are so much easier to keep an eye on." Mireia decided to ignore that comment.

"So where are we going now? Where does a person vacation in the Labyrinth?"

"Outside the Labyrinth, of course," said Jareth. He took her arm and tucked it back around his. "You can't turn into an owl, so I'm afraid we'll have to do this the hard way." He approached the edge of the wall that he had just jerked her back from. "Hop up," he said, stepping gracefully up onto the ledge.

"But you just pulled me away from this!"

"And now I'm pulling you towards it. Though I advise you once again not to let go of my arm." And with that, he stepped out into the thin air, pulling her with him. Mireia wasn't afraid of heights. Not really. But she did take exception to falling from them. As Jareth pulled her forward, she found that she couldn't breath, making it impossible to ask Jareth what the hell he thought he was doing. She was still bracing herself for a sharp drop when--a mere foot or so down, her feet met solid air, and the scream that had been coming stuck in her throat. The air seemed to be a lot firmer that it should have been. Jareth tightened his grip on her arm and said "Step this way, please."

And as casually as that, Mireia found herself strolling along on the arm of the Goblin King across thin air. Feeling a bit wobbly in the knees, she found it hard not to look down at exactly what her feet weren't walking on. They were passing over the Goblin City, its unique and ramshackle little houses and streets winding away beneath them.

"We will get back in time for Michael to get to the castle, right?" asked Mireia, wrenching her gaze away from the miniatures below her.

"We'll put in an appearance, yes," said Jareth. "Though I doubt the Goblin's little rebellion party will be over just yet." He sighed. "The things I do for my Kingdom." They walked in silence for a bit. Mireia found that she didn't mind the walking-on-nothing part so badly after all.

"Kindly stop crowding me," Jareth said after a while. "The path won't suddenly end on your side, so you needn't step on my feet."

"Oh!" said Mireia, who had not noticed how close she'd been trying to keep to him in an effort not to fall off of her side of the invisible path. "Sorry."

"Quite," said Jareth, and the silence descended again. They walked for a long while and soon Mireia got bored of looking down at the Labyrinth. She decided to get back to asking Jareth pertinent questions.

"So how come you don't look like a Goblin?" she asked him. He chuckled and said nothing for several moments.

"I am a Goblin King, not a Goblin." She could hear the smile in his voice and turned her face up to watch his expressions. A wide, pointy-toothed smile was aimed down at her.

"Well, what's the big difference?" Mireia asked, determined to get to the bottom of this while she had the chance. "I mean, are you human? Or are you some breed of super Goblin that becomes, like, the Opposite of Goblins. You know, you're tall, where they're short, you're thin where they're fat. They're ugly and you're handso--" she stopped herself in a slight horror over what she'd almost said out loud. "You're not green," she finished quickly, hoping he wouldn't notice her near slip. She glanced at his face. The smile had turned wicked and his brows were arched up in a knowing look.

"No, I am not strictly human," he replied, still smirking at her. "And I'm not a Super Goblin, God forbid something like that should ever exist. Any other guesses?"

"Well," said Mireia, thinking. "You said you weren't strictly human--what does that mean? You look like a human. Are you half human and half goblin and your human genes won out? You know, your father was a burly human knight and your mother a Goblin princess and they fell in love and had an elicit affair and had to marry?"

"Wrong again, and kindly leave my mother out of this."

"Can't you just tell me?"

"Where would be the fun in that?" He asked, obviously enjoying himself.

"The fun would be in my knowing, once and for all," Mireia replied, firmly. "Come on. Give."

"I was human once," he told her, his mouth reshaping itself into a more serious form. "But now I am not quite human. I can't explain it to you better than that."

"What happened to make you not quite human?" Mireia persisted.

"I was brought here," he said simply.

"By who?"

"By the Goblins."

"Where were you from before?"

"That's none of your affair."

"But--" she started.

"Mireia," he cut her off warningly. "I've told you quite enough about that."

"All right, fine," she said, undaunted. "Did you build the Labyrinth, then?

"Parts of it, yes," he replied. "I didn't start it, though. The first part--the magical part, was here long before I came. Long before even the Goblins came, I believe."

"How did you get to be King?" Mireia asked next.

"I defeated the old one in combat," he replied.

"How old are you really?"

"I don't believe I'll answer that question."

"Did you Love Sarah?" Mireia said, not missing a beat. Jareth stopped in his tracks, gripped her shoulders with his gloved hands, and turned her to face him.

"I am not, nor have I ever been in Love with Sarah Williams. Do I make myself clear on that point?" His expression was intense but unreadable. She couldn't figure out if he was upset with the question, or just vehement about it.

"Yes," she said, surprised. "So you didn't love her. Why does it say that you do in the book?"

"My guess is that our intrepid young Sarah went home, wrote all of her adventures down in her diary, and a few years later published a book about it. I certainly never told her I was in love with her. She got that idea on her own."

"Oh," said Mireia. Sarah's imaginings where sometimes too close to her own. Mireia had pretended a little that Jareth loved her. But now he was real, and not quite like her imaginings. She didn't yet know how to feel about this Jareth, and with any luck, she wouldn't be around long enough to contemplate it much further. She suppressed an urge to step out of his grip. He abruptly released her, twined her arm around his again, and set off walking once more.

"How much further?" Mireia asked, after several minutes of silence.

"Do you see that desert, off in the distance, beyond the Labyrinth?"

"Yes."

"That's where we're going."

"You're vacationing in a desert?"

"No, I'm vacationing at a desert Oasis. It's really quite exclusive."

"That sounds more like it," Mireia approved.

"You should enjoy it. It will probably be your last vacation as a human girl." His tone was clipped and devilish.

"It will NOT," Mireia returned forcefully. Jareth didn't reply. She had expected some rejoinder and looked up at him in askance. The smile was gone, and he was not looking at her, but below them, into the Labyrinth. Two more steps and he stopped abruptly, his expression becoming concerned.

"That isn't right," he muttered softly to himself, producing a globe in the hand that wasn't hooked around Mireia's. "What the bloody--" he began, looking into the globe. Mireia craned to see into it, too, but either the angle was wrong, or she wasn't capable. She saw nothing. His hand flipped, instantaneously putting the crystal away. And then suddenly the solid path of air that they'd been traveling on was no longer there. They began to fall.


	9. Michael and the Goblins

Feeling happy enough to dance madly around--and only stifling the impulse when he thought about how little time he had left--Michael led the way out of the forest.

"C'mon Mooreland!" he said, speeding up to a jog. Mooreland made a determined noise and Michael could feel his footsteps behind. If his time ran out while he was this close...the thought didn't bear thinking. The Junkyard got larger on his right. He ignored it. One of the junk people started to sidle up to him. He nearly bowled her over. "No time," he gasped at her. And since Mooreland and his Smell were coming along right after, the junk woman jumped hurriedly--surprisingly nimble under her junk--out of the way.

"What about your nice computer, dearie?" she called from behind them.

"I don't care!" Michael yelled back. "Really, Jareth, get some new tricks," he added in a mutter. Then he had to stop replying to her shouts about his other possessions because he didn't have the breath. The gates got bigger with each step. Soon he was close enough to see the three drunken Goblins that guarded them. He could only tell they were drunken because they were holding two tankards apiece and were singing at the top of their lungs in between swigs of whatever passed for Goblin alcohol. He couldn't catch very many of the words, but they put him in mind of every Pirate drinking song he'd ever heard--that was, until he caught the words to the chorus:

"Down with Jareth the Goblin King  
The bastard made us dance and sing!"

Shouldn't Jareth show up and kick a few of them for that? He began to slow down in his mad rush. Something wasn't right. Drunken Goblins didn't look very wrong...but the words were setting alarm bells off in his head...and the gates were wide open. They didn't appear to even notice Michael, as he halted in front of them not two yards away. They did notice Mooreland, however. Even before the Bog he was hard to miss. They trailed off in mid-chorus.

"Actually," said Michael, for lack of anything better to say, "You're singing--and dancing a bit--right now. I don't think you've got much of a case against your King if that's the worst of it." One of the Goblins scowled at him from safely behind his compatriots.

"Yeah, but we was made to do it then! This time it's of our own free will."

"We've stopped taking his abuse!" piped up another Goblin, who looked the worse for the wear. He was weaving slightly.

"We've got a new king!" said the last with a triumphant swig of his drink.

"And who's he?" asked Michael, wondering if he should be afraid or amused. Goblins in general weren't very frightening when it was broad day light and they weren't trying to steal you.

"Can't tell," said the first goblin confidentially. "If you have a king's name, you have too much power. But you can go ask him yourself if you really want."

"Ok. Where do I find him?" asked Michael.

"In the Castle beyond the city, of course!" said one Goblin looking at him in disgust. "You should certainly know that if you've gotten all this way through the Labyrinth!" Michael was about to explain that he'd meant where in the castle the king could be found, but the it occurred to him that he was standing at the gates of the city talking to three drunk Goblins, while he could be dashing madly up to the castle in search of Mireia. There was no time to lose--no matter who the king was, Michael still had to get Mireia back.

So instead of trying to wheedle a better answer out of the Goblins, he simply said, "Right," and walked past them into the Goblin City. Mooreland came lumbering after him, cutting a swath through the Goblins who crowded the streets.

It was a much happier place when there weren't Goblin wars going on, Michael noticed. In fact, it looked like a cross between a European town in a fairytale book and a cartoon. If he'd had time, he would have explored--down alleys, into houses and shops. But he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the the Castle that rose over everything. Out of breath, they approached the doors to the castle.

"Good thing they're big," observed Michael.

"I'd have gone in even if they weren't big enough," grunted Mooreland. "If I don't get rid of this stench soon, I'm going to give up breathing."

Michael stepped briskly up the stairs, and taking a deep breath to try and quiet his apprehension, he flung both doors wide. They walked in to the throne room. It was pandemonium. Goblins were everywhere, hanging from places on the wall, covering the floor like some sort of grotesque carpeting. They were just as drunk as the gate guards, and every one of them seemed to be singing a different song--all about Jareth's demise. But only one of them sat on the throne.

He was slightly bigger than the rest of them, but still about half the size of Michael. He held a spear in one hand and tried to look out imposingly on his rampant subjects. Michael couldn't imagine that Jareth had fallen to him. But Jareth's fate didn't matter, Michael reminded himself. All that mattered was Mireia. So he made his way through the singing, laughing, chittering, gibbering Goblins until he could stand in front of the throne.

"I've come for my sister Mireia," he said. "My kingdom is as great as yours and you have no power of me. Hand her over." He thought that if it had been Jareth, he might have done the words a bit more formally. But this little Goblin didn't command the same sort of fear and respect that Jareth did. If all else failed, Michael could probably just give him a good kick and find Mireia in the rest of the castle somewhere. The Goblin sneered at him.

"Not here," it pronounced with malicious glee.

"Where is she then?" he asked, feeling uneasy and exasperated at once.

"Disappeared. Jareth is gone, too."

"But what about my challenge?" Michael asked, voice raising in frustration. "I challenged the Goblin King's Labyrinth and I beat it, so I win Mireia back! If you're the Goblin King instead of Jareth, fine! But Mireia is still mine."

"And what about me!" Rumbled Mooreland. "I've earned my way here, and now I want my wish." He lumbered forward a few more steps and towered over Michael's shoulder, Glaring down at the little Goblin. It's beady eyes flipped back and forth between them, searching for a way out.

"No challenges now that I'm King," he said finally.

"Where. is. Mireia?" said Michael in a low, angry voice. He found he was quite ready to kick the thing the length of a football field. He was hungry, tired and footsore. He'd traversed an entire Labyrinth, been captured and fallen into two holes. He'd seen through traps and illusions and he'd survived to the castle. That was how it worked. The rules were not going to change now. He wouldn't let them.

"Don't know."

"Arghh!" said Michael. "That's it. I don't care who you think you are, but you're not the Goblin King, or you would know precisely where Mireia is. You don't even have any of those cool globe things that Jareth uses to work magic. Get off the throne, right now!" Michael reached for the Goblin and yanked him off. He flew across the room, landing in a pile of his fellow Goblins. And on the throne, where the Pretender Goblin had been sitting, was the thirteen hour clock. Michael did a double take and stared at it in shock for a few unproductive seconds.

It was pointing directly to the thirteenth hour. Without stopping to think too hard about it, Michael grabbed it and threw it to the ground with all his might. It twanged but didn't break. Then he calmly turned to Mooreland and said, "Mooreland. Would you mind very much stepping on this clock?"

"I wouldn't mind at all," said Mooreland gravely. He lifted one hoof and set it down on the face of the clock. There was a splintering noise, and then it simply crumbled under the sand elk's weight.

The stone walls of the castle rumbled ominously, and then settled back down. It was then that Michael noticed the abject silence coming from the Goblins. He turned to them, to find all of them staring up at him with various expressions of awe. Then one Goblin stood up and shouted, "Health to the Goblin Kings!"

"Oh, hell," said Michael.


	10. Mireia in the Labyrinth

Mireia was too busy keeping her eyes shut and her lunch down to scream. Jareth's grip on her arm tightened, and he pulled her in next to him.

"Don't worry," he said softly into her ear, in a tone of voice that was almost normal. Mireia would have envied him his calm if she'd had any room left in her brain to think. She didn't, so she simply clenched her teeth together and dug her fingers into his shoulders. And since she was so busy not screaming and not looking, she failed to notice when Jareth produced a globe and hurled it down below them. She did notice, however, when--instead of slamming into the ground and acquiring broken bones--they bounced gently onto a giant, clear bubble. Then it began shrinking slowly to the ground, lowering them with it. Soon, it was gone completely, and Mireia found herself sprawled on the ground with Jareth. Her face was smashed up against his solar plexus thanks to his arm which was still wrapped securely around her.

Lifting her head to give him a rueful smile, she ordered her fingers to relax their death-grip and got shakily to her feet. Jareth gracefully followed suit and straightened his clothing, tactfully not mentioning the claw marks in his shoulders. She took in their surroundings--the tall green shrubbery of the hedge maze.

"Well," said Jareth, looking her over with an appraising look. "You don't appear injured. Shall we go?" He offered his arm to her with a smile, just as if nothing had happened. Mireia wasn't ready to let it go so easily.

"No we shall not," she said, swallowing several times to settle her stomach. "What just happened? I wasn't hallucinating. We definitely just fell out of the sky. Falling out of the sky is only my worst nightmare. Where did the path go? Did you lose grip of your magic?" She looked up at him sternly, to try and distract him from noticing how badly her limbs were wobbling. His expression turned from a casual smile into a distinctly closed look.

"I did not," he said with conviction, "lose control of the magic path. Rather, it was forcefully taken out of my hands."

"And this doesn't cause you any alarm? Shouldn't you be more concerned?"

"I assure you, I am very concerned, which is why we are now going to find the source of this annoyance. Now are you going to accompany me or would you rather wander the Labyrinth alone?"

"Oh--I. Yes," she said, disgruntled.

"Splendid," he said in a low, slightly bored voice. And then he started walking--fast. Mireia was forced to an undignified trot to keep up. Jareth had vexingly long legs, and for a man who could turn into an owl whenever he wanted, he walked surprisingly quickly. She was forced to forget about her shaky limbs in an effort to not be left behind.

"Where--are you going--to look--first," she panted, drawing even with him.

"At my Castle."

"What do you suppose it was--that grabbed the path--out from under us?" Mireia asked. She was warming up to the trot. It wasn't really so bad. And she'd been on cross country all last season. It was easier to breath now that her lungs had resigned themselves to the idea.

"I haven't the faintest idea." He was maddeningly close-lipped about it. For the next few minutes, no matter how cunningly she put the question to him, he gave variations on the same answer. Finally, he stopped in mid-stride, turned to her and slid a gloved finger along her chin with deceptive gentleness.

"I do not know what broke the path, Mireia," he told her evenly. "If you ask me even once more, I will be more than happy to drop you head-first into the Bog of Eternal Stench, and you can keep asking the same question there." He paused and so did his finger. "I, however, will be traveling to my Castle to deal with whatever interfered with my magic. Is that clear to you?"

"Yes," Mireia said promptly, not willing to tempt fate when it came to Jareth's temper. He was so deceptively calm and reasonable all the time that it made her want to push him a little harder to see where his calm ended. But she didn't want to incur his wrath. Or end up in the bog for that matter. "Sorry."

"I'm sure." He dropped his hand back to his side and kept walking. She didn't dare ask about her fate, or Michael's just now, which would have been her next question. If something was going wrong with his magic or his Labyrinth, she was fairly sure that something was going wrong with everything. And hopefully that meant that Jareth had more important things to think about, and she was in no danger of becoming a Goblin. At least, not any time soon. Since she forbid herself to think of any more questions for Jareth, instead she fell to thinking about his magic and the crystal he'd given her.

She was vaguely aware that Jareth had slowed his pace slightly to allow her to keep up without jogging, but most of her conscious attention was directed at analyzing Jareth's magic. The best way to start, she decided, was to go back over the times she'd seen him use actual magic. She supplemented those with the times he'd used it in the book. There was the first time in the book--when he'd turned the crystal into a snake and thrown it at Sarah. Then there was the first time Mireia herself had seen him using magic--to spy on her brother in one of his crystals.

She had unconsciously assumed that the crystals were somehow magic. But--and this was a rather large hole for her to have just noticed--the crystals couldn't _be_ his magic, or he'd never have given her one of them. And he used magic without them--like turning into an owl or making that path out of air. It followed, of course, that his magic came from him, as did the crystals--not the other way around. She'd been so silly to never think about it before! And she'd sat there for so long, in his throne room, trying to figure out how his magic crystal worked, when it was him that made it work.

Ok, so she'd been a fool. She'd correct that now. He hadn't actually told her that he wouldn't teach her magic, he'd said she had to figure out some of it on her own before he could teach her. What did that mean? He was the one with the magic, not she. But if she hadn't been capable of learning it at all, wouldn't he have just told her it was impossible? "You remind me of the babe," she thought, nearly laughing out loud. "The babe with the power."

Sarah had had power. She'd been able to make the Goblin King listen to her. She'd been able to bend the rules of his Labyrinth. In her account, she'd claimed that Jareth had given her special powers because he'd fallen in love with her. But Mireia had heard his denial of loving Sarah from his own mouth. If he didn't love her, why would he give her powers? Perhaps he hadn't. In which case, she'd had powers all along, without him. Where had she gotten them, then? And what did that mean for Mireia? Where could Mireia find magic like that?

She was forcibly wrenched from her thoughts when a piercing cry rent the air. It was followed by many others. It took Mireia a disoriented moment to realize that the sky was slowly being filled with a large flock of white owls, rising out of the crumbling ruins that lay before them. When the sky was nearly blotted out by their brilliance, the group started to drift forward and down--straight at them.

"OOH! The owls from your story!" Mireia exclaimed, watching excitedly. It didn't occur to her to be afraid with the master of the Labyrinth standing next to her.

"Of course. Did you think I made them up?" he cast an amused glance at her wide eyes and even wider smile.

"No. But I didn't know I would get to see them! Will they talk to us?"

"I would think so. Or they wouldn't be flying straight toward us."

"What do they talk about? I've always heard owls are wise," she couldn't be spared to look at Jareth when there were so many interesting creatures coming towards her, but she didn't miss the warning in his next comment.

"They are very wise. And the wise have various uses for information, not all of them savory. I wouldn't tell them more than necessary, if I were you."

"But Orion--" she started, and cut herself off abruptly as Jareth stepped forward and held up his arm so that one large owl could detach himself from the others and glide smoothly down to land on it.

"Hello, Gyre," Jareth told the owl gravely. The owl cocked his head inquisitively.

"Strange things happening," said the owl. Mireia suppressed an urge to jump at the sound of the voice. It was a strange tenor. Like the regular hoot of an owl stretched out to an unnatural length.

"Yes, I know," said Jareth. "Please, tell me what you've seen from your city." Gyre said nothing for a while, simply regarding Jareth with his solemn, dark eyes. When he finally did reply, Mireia thought that there was a little mirth in the owl's tone. It was hard reading something so familiar in Gyre's alien voice, but she was pretty sure it was there.

"Your challenger. The boy. He arrived at the castle before the thirteenth hour. The Goblins call he and his--companion--their new Kings."

"Impossible," said Jareth, crossly. Somehow, Mireia had expected a bigger reaction. She knew she'd reacted by nearly exclaiming in surprise. But she'd stifled it quickly in order to see how the news affected Jareth. She'd expected enraged and gotten mildly annoyed.

"They've set themselves up in your throne room," added Gyre. Mireia thought that there was a hint of gleeful malice in that last sentence, as if the owl, too, had been expecting more of a show and was trying to coax it out of Jareth, now.

"That will soon be rectified," returned Jareth. "Now tell me, has anyone else gone into my castle?"

"No one," said Gyre.

"Then we'll be on our way. You will, of course, tell me if you see anything entering the Labyrinth that doesn't belong." It was phrased as a question, but was clearly a command. Gyre bobbed his head in owlish agreement, and took off from Jareth's arm, going to join his fellows as they flocked back to their ruins.

Without a word to Mireia, Jareth began walking again. She fell into step with him, widening her strides in an attempt to match his. After several minutes of trying to hold her tongue, she found that she couldn't contain herself anymore.

"Is Michael the Goblin King?" she asked.

"No, Michael is not the Goblin King," he replied testily, not slowing. "He must have stopped the challenge by smashing the clock, but his victory would have done that anyway. Something else is happening here, and I'm not entirely sure what it is."

"But if Michael's not the King--who is?" asked Mireia. He gave her quelling look.

"I am," he said, rather coldly.

"Then what's the big deal?"

"That is what I'm trying to find out."

They were taking a route that led them around the White Owl's ruins. There was even a road of sorts, paved with slightly irregular stones. Everything was dusty and in disrepair. There were grasses and wildflowers growing up in the cracks.

Mireia still had questions, but she didn't know how to ask them, as the problem was so open ended. Jareth didn't sound like he could answer most of them anyway. At least there didn't seem to be any danger of becoming a goblin any longer. With that comforting thought, she wandered along beside him, watching her feet so that she didn't step on any of the flowers--some of whom had faces. They muttered in soft voices to each other, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. Gradually, she stopped thinking altogether, and just put one foot in front of the other, watching stone after sparkly stone pass beneath her.

Suddenly, Jareth's hand closed around her upper arm like a vice and jerked her sideways so that she knocked into him.

"What--" she started.

"Mind the holes," he said sharply. She looked over at the place she'd been about to step on and saw that it was an optical illusion. Walking straight on, the path looked normal--sideways, there was a wide pit. Jareth had pulled her neatly around it.

"God," she said. "Thanks."

"Hardly God," he said, resuming his usual tone of calm amusement. She was about to reply to that comment, when another voice cut in.

"Jareth," it purred, from further along the path. They both turned to face the owner.

Mireia saw a beautiful woman, long-legged and voluptuous. Her hair fell to her waist, curling in utter perfection at the tips. It was a good thing that her hair was so long, Mireia thought, because there was nothing else to cover her breasts. Scarves and various sinuous scraps of cloth hung from her hips, just barely clinging to propriety. "What a nice surprise."

"Sabina," said Jareth, smiling devilishly. "I prefer to surprise you. I can't have you surprising me."

"No, I suppose not," the woman pouted a little. "But it would be the greatest thrill of your life, if you'd let me." Jareth laughed.

"You mean the last thrill of my life," Jareth returned, still chuckling, and causing the woman to laugh throatily back.

Mireia decided two things in the midst of this banter. One was obvious: the woman was dangerous. Jareth had laughingly just told her as much. The second was that Mireia had felt a distinct twinge of--something. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, and she was trying valiantly ignore it instead of naming it. But the word hung in the front of her thoughts, refusing to be banished: Jealousy.

"Come to my pavilion. Rest and let me tend to you. I can see you are tired. And so is your little captive," Sabina's words were slightly hypnotic. Not only did Mireia suddenly feel more tired than she had before, but she very much wanted to see this pavilion. When the woman gave Jareth another look, however, it was Mireia's own pang of jealousy that jerked her out of the trap. That, and being called a 'captive'. She looked over at Jareth to find him watching her. Casting a nervous glance at the woman, Mireia leaned in close to him.

"I'm only going if you promise not to do anything with her," she told him quietly. "She's obviously a siren. Don't get trapped." Jareth regarded her in silence for a moment.

"Mireia, my dear, this is my Labyrinth. I know what she is," he replied. "I even flatter myself that she couldn't trap me. But we've both been awake for nearly fifteen hours, and my Castle is still several hours away. We'll have to rest somewhere, and this is one of the safest places."

"Okay," agreed Mireia reluctantly.

"We accept your kind hospitality, Sabina. Lead on." As they trailed after Sabina, Mireia found herself starring in fascination at the way her scarves moved. Once she nearly tripped and only Jareth's hand catching her elbow saved her. He had tactfully fixed his eyes somewhat higher than her hips.

"They'll come off at any moment," Mireia muttered, low enough so that Sabina couldn't hear, but Jareth could. "Maybe she's hiding a devil's tail."

"Oh, much worse than that," said Jareth, just as quietly. She could hear the smile in his voice. "Try not to fall in that gap." Mireia jerked her gaze to her feet and took a wide hop over another hole in the road. Jareth simply took a wide, graceful step.

The pavilion was revealed after several minutes, around a twist in the hedge maze. It was like a rather large gazebo. Golden sunlight streamed down on it, turning the white surfaces to gold. A fountain flowed in the center, and all around the perimeter were many-colored cushions and more scarves and carpets. Everything looked so warm and comfortable that Mireia felt drowsy just looking. She imagined how lovely it would be to sink onto one of the soft piles of pillows, with the warm sun for a blanket, and be lulled to sleep by the fountain's trickle.

"Sit where you will," said Sabina, gesturing gracefully. Mireia turned to watch Jareth. He met her eyes and nodded his head almost imperceptibly towards one of the heaps of pillows. She sat down. It sank with her weight, effectively leaving her lying down. A small sigh of contentment escaped her and her eyes were half closed before she thought about it. Remembering where she was at the last second, she snapped them open. The first thing she saw was Sabina's slightly disappointed expression which she quickly changed into a pleasant smile.

"It's alright, Mireia." Jareth sank onto the cushions beside Mireia and regarded Sabina with a coldly calculating look. "Go to sleep. You're quite safe." Mireia needed no further encouragement. It only occurred to her when she was too far past the borders of sleep, that maybe she shouldn't completely trust Jareth, either.


	11. Michael in the Castle

Being King of the Goblins wasn't all fun and games, Michael decided. He was lounging in Jareth's--his--throne. Or at least, he was trying to lounge. It wasn't easy when you couldn't quite hook your legs over one arm without practically laying down on the seat. But he was managing. Really, he was just grateful to be sitting down at all.

He'd sent a few of the goblins off to find food, and was very much hoping that they'd come up with something edible. He was famished. But he couldn't afford the time it would take to nap. Mireia was still missing, and if she was the Goblin King's prisoner, it was only fitting that she would be somewhere in the castle. Michael fervently hoped she was. He didn't know where he'd look if she wasn't there.

The rest of the goblins were scattered around the room, muttering dispiritedly to themselves. After they'd declared both he and Mooreland their kings, the atmosphere in the room had definitely lost the jubilant feel it had had before.

"If I'm a goblin king," said Mooreland conversationally, "Why can't I magic the stink off of myself?"

"Don't look at me," said Michael "I'm as new at this as you are."

"What good is being one, then? I want to go home. But I can't do that until I grant my own wish, except neither of us knows how."

"Maybe we should figure out what happened to Jareth. He's the one with magic."

"That's not a bad idea. I don't think either of us wants to be king permanently. We'll have to find him and give the title back.

"Yes, but first we've got to find Mireia. She must be somewhere here. There are tons of rooms! I already had a look around when I went to find the toilet. There were more doors than I could count! More doors than the building should physically be able to support. I guess that must be more magic. Anyway, she has to be behind one of them." Michael swung his weary feet down from the chair and carefully stood up, wincing as the blood rushed back in. "Do you think you can keep them in line while I go look?" asked Michael, jerking his thumb at the goblins.

"If I can handle minotaurs, I can certainly handle goblins," said Mooreland, with great dignity. "Besides, I could squish three of them with one foot. Go and look for your sister. Maybe she knows where the Goblin King has gone."

"Okay. I'll come back for some food in a little while. I hope those goblins have managed to find something to eat. I could eat Christmas dinner twice over right now."

"I don't know what Christmas dinner is," replied Mooreland, "But I'll be sure to save you some if they bring any."

"Thanks," said Michael, and set off, up a curved stair case, and out into a hall way.

The first door he tried led into a broom closet. He shoved things out of the way and touched the back wall, just in case it was hiding some trick, but it seemed to really be just a broom closet.

The next door he checked led into a giant library. Since he and Mireia both enjoyed books so much, Michael couldn't stop himself from wandering further into the room to get a look at the sort of books that Goblin Kings kept. Goblin Tales he read on one spine. This Side of Underground, on another. The Goblin Prince, The Love Song of J. Goblin King, and Portrait of a Challenger, were a few more of the titles that caught his eye. 'Mireia', he thought, 'would have to be dragged from the room.'

Michael, however, couldn't spare the time to look around as thoroughly as he might have. After making a lap of the room and making sure that there were no obvious hiding places he'd left unchecked, no obscure door left unopened, he stepped back out into the hall.

It was at that point that he ran into trouble. The hall had rearranged itself in his absence. Back the way he had come, the stairs had disappeared, leaving instead, more doors. Shrugging fatalistically, Michael walked as briskly as he could manage to the next door and poked his head cautiously inside. It was a bedroom. The meager furniture consisted of a large bed covered in aged yellow sheets and a hulking armoire that, when Michael tried it, proved to be locked.

Back into the hall, on to the next door...and so it went for a seeming eternity. There were more bedrooms, some more sumptuous than others. There was a conservatory full of predatory plants (Michael had nearly gotten his arm taken off by a purple bloom before he'd figured that out), there was a long room with cages inside it. This had given Michael a flair of hope, thinking he may have found Jareth's prisoner's quarters. Upon closer examination, however, half of the cages were empty--and the ones that were not held very strange creatures--a snake with wings, a bird with fir and a tail, a small pig with black skin and fangs. These alarmed and fascinated Michael even more than the plants had. But he pressed on, down the seemingly never-ending hall.

One door led to nothing--or rather, it led into thin air, precariously high above the Goblin City. He jerked himself back inside and shut the door, trying to catch his breath.

He opened the next door. The interior of this room was dimly lit. Michael could barely make out the shape of it--and even then all he could tell was that it was big and square. Stepping inside, and regretting not having a flash light, he waited for his eyes to adjust. There were large rectangular things hanging from the walls. Pictures? he thought. Five steps into the room, he heard the door creak shut behind him. Feeling his heart leap into his throat, he barely resisted the urge to run back and claw at the door. Taking a deep breath to get himself under control, he tried to consider his options in a less panicked light. Going back out the door he'd come in didn't seem likely. He tried it anyway--just in case--but it was stuck firmly shut.

He turned to look out at the room again. His eyes were mostly adjusted now, and he could see a little bit. There was some sort of dim light source which came from far across the room. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Michael approached one of the many picture-things hanging on the wall. Only when he stood in front of it did he realize just what it was--a mirror. And as he forced himself to peer at his dark reflection, the mirror started to light from within.

Michael saw himself. But it wasn't the way he was supposed to look. For one thing, he was older--taller with a little bit of facial hair covering his chin. In the midst of all the differences, Michael was still certain it was him. He looked tired, as if he hadn't slept in a long time, but he didn't look unhappy. Michael turned away and walked over to stand in front of the next mirror.

In this one, his reflection appeared to have changed very little. That lock of his hair that always fell down in between his glasses and his eyes was there. He hazarded a smile--maybe he'd found the normal mirror. But no--as his reflection smiled nastily back at him, Michael saw that the boy in the mirror was not quite like him after all. There was a pronounced hint of malice in his dark eyes, and the smile was cruel. Michael hoped he never actually looked like that. Backing away from his own cold-blooded smile, Michael ran into the next mirror before he got a chance to look at it.

In this mirror, he could tell something was strange. The boy that stood before him did not look, physically, any different than Michael did himself. Rather, it was something about his stance and the way he held himself that made him so odd. The very way he carried himself made him seem smaller, pale, weaker, skinnier. Everything about him said that the world had treated him badly. The shadowed eyes stared out at him with the look of a puppy that's just been kicked.

"I don't look like that, do I?" Michael asked himself. Even more than the cruel reflection, he hoped that this reflection didn't show how he really looked. He moved on.

The next showed a teenaged boy with acne and limbs that were too long for the rest of his body. The annoying forelock of hair had grown longer and flopped down over his glasses. He looked shy. This one didn't disgust him as much as the last one had, but he made a few mental notes--get hair cut, wash more often, play a sport perhaps--before he moved on, more determined than ever not to look like any of these pathetic specimens.

A strangely ornate mirror had another grown Michael in it. This one was wearing work pants and a white businessman's shirt. His hair was expensively styled and his glasses were small and fashionable. There was a hint of arrogant confidence at his mouth, and the overall air with which he carried himself spoke of power. Michael, however, noticed the frown lines around his older mouth and could find no smile lines at all. There seemed to be a permanent crease between his eyebrows. He turned to the next mirror and the next. Each showed him at varying ages with varying temperaments. Some looked good until Michael came closer and noticed the flaws.

Here he was an unhappy artist in paint spattered clothes, there he was a laughing young man with desperate eyes. None of them looked quite right.

One held an old man, hunched and broken, who peered out at him with rheumy eyes. He retreated from that one rather quickly. It was one thing to see yourself as a grown man--another to see yourself as an old man, near death.

Looking around the room, he realized he'd seen all of them. How was he to get out? Surely there had to be some purpose for this room, other than keeping him pinned inside. He turned in a slow circle, trying not to look too closely at any of the mirrors--seeing those reflections once had been quite enough. As he wandered back towards the door, he saw that he had missed one mirror, off in the corner. It looked older and smaller than the rest, and its tarnished frame caused it to blend into the dark wall. Michael approached and looked cautiously into it.

At first he saw just a vague, hazy shape. But as he watched, the figure grew more distinct, developing dark hair and glasses and a solemn, thoughtful expression. The reflection's clothing matched Michael's own--jeans and a tee shirt, torn in a few places and dirty all over. For a test, Michael smiled. His reflection smiled tentatively back at him. Michael inspected it further, determined to find any flaw, like all of the other reflections had had. But look as he might, he could not find one. As he stared intently, he began to notice that in the background reflection of the mirror, he could see other people. Upon closer inspection, those people appeared to be different versions of himself, much like the ones he had already seen in the mirrors, except that these, like the current reflection, didn't have any recognizable corruptions.

Then, much to Michael's shock, his own reflection slowly blinked one eyelid at him. Before he could adjust to being winked at by himself, his reflection had moved again. This time it was pointing to a section of wall to Michael's right. When he turned to that wall, he saw a door that had not been there before. It was small and its edges were barely discernible from the surrounding wall. When Michael tried the handle, trying not to hope too hard, it swung open easily, revealing a small, circular platform which looked out over the Labyrinth.

Stepping out of the room with relief, he found that the platform was actually the top of a tower. A scrap of light purple cloth that was snagged on a jagged piece of the stone wall caught Michael's eye. Mireia's shirt had been that exact color purple. What, Michael wondered, had happened to Mireia on the highest tower of the Goblin King's castle? He was afraid to speculate.


	12. Mireia in the Oubliette

Jareth eyed Sabina cautiously. He had no intention of sleeping here, no matter what he had implied to Mireia. However, he didn't have any idea how long Mireia could last, and he needed her awake and aware once they arrived at the castle. So he'd told her to sleep and she slept still, curled up beside him in the sunlight, face pressed to his arm. He could feel her breath seeping through the fabric of his shirt. But he didn't dare take his eyes off of Sabina.

"Shall I dance for you Jareth?" asked Sabina, a hungry glint in her eye that Jareth knew had nothing to do with dancing or him and everything to do with dinner.

"I don't think so," he said evenly with just a touch of mockery. "Come, Sabina. You must think I'm a fool."

"Oh, no. Not a fool, Jareth. The fools don't taste very good and they aren't worth a dance. They come to me easily. I barely have to do anything to seduce them. You, Goblin King, are a challenge. And I'm sure you'd taste very...good." She licked her ruby lips and Jareth tried not to show his wariness. He most certainly couldn't afford to let her know she alarmed him at all. As the Goblin King, this was his labyrinth. But that didn't mean he couldn't get caught in his own traps. He simply had a better chance of not getting caught because he'd designed them in the first place.

All he really had to do was stay awake until Mireia woke up--or until he woke her up, although he was determined to give her a few hours of sleep, at least.

"If you won't let me dance for you, then I shall sing," announced Sabina.

"You'll do no such thing," said Jareth with a frown. "I'm not some wandering challenger to be tested by your seductions, Sabina. Stop trying to trap me, or I will stop you."

"Jareth--" she started.

"Do you think I'm joking?" he asked, with a lazy menace.

"No, I--"

"Good. Then sit quietly and allow the girl to sleep. Then we will be on our way and you can find your dinner."

"No you won't." Sabina's quiet declaration caught Jareth off-guard. No one had openly defied him for so long that it took a few moments for him to feel anything.

"Oh, I won't?" he laughed a merciless laugh. "Perhaps it's time to remind you precisely who your king is."

"You won't be King for very much longer, anyway," returned Sabina. She stretched her arms forward in a curiously sinuous motion and Jareth watched as they grew longer and darker. Her whole body began to contort. He considered his options. If it had just been him facing a rebellious subject, he would not have hesitated to strike her down. But as it was, Mireia slept just behind him. Disciplining Sabina would possibly be violent, and would take up far too much time. It was a foreign thought process for Jareth, never before having been so out of control in his own realm--except maybe once and he was careful not to think of that.

Jareth formed a crystal and sent it at Sabina with a practiced flip of the wrist. It grew until it encased her and then hardened. She scrabbled her spidery legs ineffectually at the walls of her clear prison. Turning, Jareth gently swung Mireia up into his arms and set off walking purposefully. As he descended the steps of Sabina's Pavilion, he noticed that there was an invisible wall beginning to form around it--almost like the crystal that he had trapped Sabina in. But this wall wasn't yet hardened. Someone, it seemed, was trying to trap _him_. He shoved and it gave before him, letting he and Mireia through.

Just as he set foot back on the road, he heard something behind him. Glancing back, he saw Sabina, a gigantic spider now, come crawling out of her pavilion, somehow free of his crystal prison. How had she freed herself? She didn't have any magic except that with which she charmed her victims. He couldn't very well deal with her while carrying Mireia. And he was fairly sure that Sabina was meant as a distraction from the real trouble--whatever was trying to interfere with his magic and his rule. So--time to leave. How? He looked swiftly around. No real cover, no convenient doors or false dead-ends. There was nothing for it. They'd have to go down. He stomped one booted foot on the ground beneath them.

"Open up," he commanded. A small hole formed. "Wake up, Mireia," he said sternly. There was no reaction from the sleeping girl. Perhaps she'd gone partially under Sabina's spell. He'd just have to hope she awoke on the way down. Jareth stepped into the hole. A few seconds later, it closed over head.

* * *

Mireia dreamed of solid warmth and a very nice velvety pillow. She heard music in the background of her dreams. It had started as trickling water, but had slowly become more complex. Soft little melodies drifted by her, harmonizing, keeping an erratic beat.

Then the beat stopped being erratic and became a steady heart beat. She wondered in a vague, dream-like way, if the heart beat was hers.

The dream changed again, and the noise became the flapping of wings. She looked up to see the dream sky fill with a huge flock of white owls--thinking only to talk to one of them, she leapt up to follow them. Before she'd gone three steps, she felt herself falling. It was one of the holes in the road--in her haste to catch the White Owls, she'd fallen into a trap. Feeling annoyed that she'd failed to catch up to them, she waited to stop falling. Some corner of her mind suggested that she should be afraid, falling forever down this hole. But her dream self didn't think very much of that idea.

So she fell deeper and soon the light above her disappeared and everything was brown darkness. She only started to get uneasy when colder air swept up from underneath her. What was she falling into? Mireia craned her neck to look underneath her, but couldn't make out anything. What if she never stopped falling? Somehow, this idea frightened her much more than the thought of hitting something. What would happen to Michael if she fell forever in this hole? And where was Jareth? She'd just been with him. With these thoughts, the edges of her dream started to recede a little. Consciousness trickled back in pushing back her dreams further, as she swam into waking.

For several disoriented moments, she could not remember anything. Then even when she had woken up fully, her most pressing questions only intensified. Why was she laying on a cold slab of rock? Where had the sunlit pavilion, the comfortable pillows, and--most importantly--Jareth gone?

The last question was answered when she heard a muttered curse from a few feet away from her. Lifting her head off of the stone, she turned to look at the source of the swearing. She could see nothing. Another curse issued from that direction, just a few feet away.

"Jareth?" she asked, tentatively, lifting herself to a sitting position.

"What?" he asked, crossly.

"Where are we and how did we get here?"

"Trust me: you don't want to know."

"Actually, I do," said Mireia firmly. She crawled towards him, and ended up running into him. This wasn't particularly surprising, considering how dark it was. Jareth, however, hadn't known she was coming. The second she touched him, she suddenly found herself pinned to the rock, two gloved hands on her shoulders, "You're obviously okay," said Mireia rather breathlessly.

"Mostly," he paused for a beat and then let her up. A moment later, a light flared and Mireia could see Jareth by the glow of the crystal in his hand. He looked her over critically.

"I'm okay, too," she supplied.

"Then it's time to go." He hooked a gloved hand firmly under her elbow and pulled them both to their feet.

"So where are we?" she asked as he led her along.

"In one of my many Oubliettes."

"Oh," she paused, considering this turn of events. "You know the way back to the surface, right?"

"Yes. But as it happens, we are not trying to get to the surface."

"We aren't? I'm not meaning to be dense, here, but why wouldn't we want to get out?"

"We won't stay in the Oubliette. But we will stay under ground. It will be slightly safer for us here right now."

"I'm all in favor of safety."

"Smart of you." He led them to a wall, paused to look at it for a second, and then simply kicked it down. The fake rock fell in with a crash, revealing a tunnel not unlike the one where Sarah and Hoggle had run from the cleaners.

"Don't look so alarmed," Jareth told her. "The cleaners aren't due for a week, if they even remember, which they won't."

"Oh. Good," said Mireia, allowing herself a small sigh of relief. They walked in silence for several moments. But Mireia, as always, had more questions, and they were dying to get out.

"Am I going to become a Goblin?" she asked. Immediately her heart leapt into her throat. She really didn't want to know the answer to this question, but she hadn't been able to keep herself from asking it.

"Afraid you're going to shrink and sprout warts any second?" he asked.

"Yes!"

"Relax. You won't become a goblin," he replied, with a short laugh.

"Why not?" she asked, trying to bite her traitorous tongue.

"Because," he said patiently, "The thirteen hours are up and your brother has completed my Labyrinth."

"I knew he got to your castle from what Gyre said, but what about that dramatic 'take back the--er--child that you have stolen' stuff?"

"That will come later," he said in the clipped tones that usually meant she should stop asked questions. But now that she knew she was not in danger of permanently becoming a goblin, there was no stemming the tide.

"But how did he do it? And does this mean we get to go home?"

"I don't know, and not yet."

"When you fix your magic, can we go home?"

"As you can see, my magic isn't broken," he gestured to the lighted crystal. "Something merely interrupted it. And it's up to Michael whether or not you go home. He thinks he's gotten out of it, but he'll have to take you back properly."

"Oh. That's ok then. If he got through the Labyrinth I'm sure he can handle the last lines. But--the last thing I remember was falling asleep in Sabina's Pavilion. What happened?"

"We walked into a trap," she could hear the grimace in his voice.

"We knew that, though. I mean, Sabina is supposed to be a trap, right?"

"It was a trap within a trap and I had to get us out of it quickly."

"So Sabina lured us into a trap that wasn't hers? It doesn't seem very like her."

"No, it isn't very like her," he cast her an amused look, cheekbones standing out in the stark light from his crystal. "Though I can't see how you would know what Sabina is like."

"She's a siren. I've read all about them. They always use the same tricks--singing, dancing, beauty, nakedness--I'm glad I'm a girl. It's easy not to get tricked."

"There are male sirens," he told her, a wicked glint in his eyes.

"I'm sure I wouldn't be taken in so easily, though," she objected. "And stop avoiding the topic. What trap and how did we get out of it?"

"I don't know what the trap was," his voice had developed an bored drawl. "But I could tell it was there, another layer to Sabina's. I'm not overly fond of being trapped, so I opened a passage to this Oubliette."

"Which is also a trap."

"Yes, but it's my trap, and I'd rather be in a trap that I control than a trap controlled by someone else."

"Good point," Mireia conceded.

"Do you know--"said Jareth.

"What?"

"You remind me of the babe."

"Wha--Oh, no. I'm not falling for that."

"Falling for what?" he asked innocently.

"The you-remind-me-of-the-babe thing"

"What babe?"

"The babe with the pow--hey! Stop that!"

"Why?"

"Because--because...because I already know that one, and I'm not a dumb goblin!"

"I didn't say you were." He paused. "I was giving you a hint."

"About what?"

"That, Mireia, would be telling." He sounded smug.

"Can't you even give me a hint about what the hint is about?

"No." Before Mireia could get on with the cross examination, they came to a split in the tunnel. They both stopped walking. A very strange look came over Jareth's face in the dim light. Mireia would have been tempted to take a step away if he wasn't the only source of light. He glared dangerously at the walls.

"This is not supposed to be here," said Jareth in a low, rather frightening voice. "Perhaps we aren't as safe underneath the Labyrinth as I thought."

"What are you going to do about it?" He looked over at her, one eyebrow lifting thoughtfully.

"_You're_ going to choose a passage. Pick one." He gestured with one gloved hand.

"I don't know which way we should go," Mireia protested.

"That doesn't matter. I can't be the one to choose. It has to be you."

"But it's not my stupid Labyrinth and--"

"Mireia," he said warningly.

"Oh, all right! That one!" she pointed randomly, before she had time to think, at the tunnel on the right.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" He started down the tunnel and she kept pace with him, stretching her legs into the wide stride she'd adopted for keeping up with Jareth.

"No. I still don't understand."

"You don't have to understand. In fact, it's probably better if you don't. Now stop asking questions and walk or I will leave you here in the Oubliette."

"That wasn't vague, or anything, oh Goblin King. And I know when to keep my mouth shut, though aren't you getting bossy all of a sudden?"

"Your mouth, my dear Mireia, will get you tossed into the Bog yet."

Happily, Mireia was saved from further threats because at that precise moment the stony ground started to rumble. It started as a distant underground thunder and grew to a full-scale earthquake.


	13. Michael Underground

Pocketing the piece of Mireia's shirt, he cautiously peered over the edge and hoped that he wouldn't see a crumpled body below. But there was nothing. A clear cobbled street ran below the tower, eventually going into the goblin city. Breathing at bit easier, he chose to think that she must have gone back inside. So he turned to do just that except his foot caught on a loose brick. When he knelt to inspect it he found that not only was it a loose brick, but it was large enough to be covering--he pried it up--a passage.

It looked dark and deep, but Michael wasn't the same boy who'd entered the Labyrinth more than thirteen hours ago. He'd been in an Oubliette and the Bog of Eternal Stench, and now he was determined to get his sister back. That meant going down into the hole since there didn't seem to be any other way she could have gone.

Taking a deep breath, he turned over on his stomach and eased himself feet first down into the hole. Just as he was feeling a little bit panicked, his feet brushed solid ground. And he realized, once his eyes adjusted, that the walls were glowing ever so faintly. They were covered in glow-in-the-dark fungus. With eyes. It illuminated the shallow spiraling stairs that stretched out below him. Feeling vaguely creeped out and relieved all at the same time, he started down the stairs under the eyes of the fungus.

It was a long way down. After a while, Michael looked up to find the top was only recognizable as a tiny point of light far above. Looking back down, he couldn't see further than the next spiral. Sighing rather, he continued. A few minutes later it seemed to him that he had to have descended from the castle by now and any minute he'd be underground if he wasn't already. The thought gave him a rather creepy feeling. What would he find? Did Jareth keep a crypt? A dungeon? An underground river? All three?

It couldn't be any worse than the Bog, he assured himself. With that firmly in mind, he stepped too hard on the last step and felt as if the stairs should have had one more. A room opened up from the bottom of the stairs. It was rectangular and more like a long hall than a room. Michael saw no other way to go.

The first voice nearly scared him out of his mind.

"You're going the right way!" boomed a voice from the wall. Michael jerked towards it. Stern and gravely, he recognized the face of a false alarm. At least, he thought it was a false alarm, but it's message threw him off. Shrugging, he continued. He jumped slightly less at the next.

"Don't turn back now!" it said.

"You're so close!" another proclaimed. Something definitely felt very wrong about this.

"You're not actually encouraging me, are you?" asked Michael. "Aren't you false alarms?"

"Of course we're encouraging you," one rumbled. "Why would we do anything else?"

"I don't think that's the question at all," said Michael. "You're supposed to warn me off when I get too close." He paused and thought about what he'd just said. "Except, now you're egging me on. I--" something occurred to him. "You're not sending me towards a trap, are you?"

"No, no!" blustered another one. It wasn't so much the possibility of walking into a trap that concerned Michael, it was more who might have walked into the trap before him.

"You didn't see a girl pass through here a while ago, did you?" asked Michael.

"How long's a while ago?" asked one further down. "There've been all manner."

"Look," said Michael, seeing he wouldn't get far with that line of enquiry. "Can you just tell me if there's anything dangerous at the other end of this room?"

"Er...no. Nothing dangerous. That was the right answer, wasn't it?" the big face asked anxiously.

"I think so," said another face dubiously.

"I don't hold with this reverse psychology stuff," asserted another voice. "Give me good old doom and danger any day."

"Do you mean to say you're trying to scare me away from the right track with reverse psychology?" asked Michael, fascinated.

"New fangled ideas don't do any good," agreed another voice as if they hadn't heard him.

"Right. I say we go back to the standard."

"Hear, hear!"

"Right!"

"That's the spirit!"

"Don't go on!" boomed one with enthusiasm.

"Go back before it's too late!" said another, obviously enjoying itself.

"The path you choose will lead to utter destruction!"

Well, thought Michael, that solves it. False alarms after all. He continued between them, trying not to jump as each voice sounded, gleefully predicting Armageddon and worse.

At the end of the room was a plain, ordinary door with a small grate at eye level, though all was dark behind it, so Michael couldn't see into the room. The only strange thing about it was it's lack of a door knob.

"How do you get in?" Michael wondered out loud.

"Give us the password, o'course," said a voice.

"Who said that?"

"Oy did."

"Where are you?"

"Royt in front of your nose!" it chuckled. And then Michael saw it. A small blue worm was twined around one of the bars of the grate.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Ain't you inquisitive," it laughed again. "Oy'm just a worm. But I'm taking a turn as gate keeper. If you want in here you've got to say the password."

"Am I allowed a hint?"

"Oh, 'course." The worm cleared its throat.

"What builds up castles

and tears down walls

Makes some blind

and helps others to see?"

"So it's a riddle," said Michael with a sinking feeling.

"Sure, it is."

"Okay." He sat down beside the door and began to think. Rocks could tear down castles and build up walls, maybe even blind some one, but he couldn't see how it would help others to see. Wood? Concrete? No. So, try it from a different line. What makes some blind? Lots of things. Tumors, chemicals, birth defects. That obviously wasn't going to get him any where. So the last line. What helps people to see? Glasses. Glass doesn't tear down walls. So go further. What is glass made of? Sand. Bingo.

Michael stood up.

"Got it then, 'ave you?"

"The answer is 'sand'."

"Oh, a smart one. Right you are. Come on in." The door swung open of its own accord, and after a moment's hesitation, Michael stepped through it.


	14. Mireia Underground

"What is doing that?" asked Mireia.

"If I knew, I'd have stopped it by now," replied Jareth calmly.

"Well can't you just magic us out of here--like when you brought us to visit Michael the first time?"

"It doesn't work like that, Mireia. There are rules. I can only "magic us" to the challenger or the wisher. As we don't have either one of those anymore, I'm afraid we'll have to travel the old-fashioned way.

"Oh," she said. The ground continued to shake and little bits of rock started to fall.

"I think, perhaps, it's time to leave," said Jareth. "This way." He walked quickly to one of the walls, tapped it imperiously with a gloved hand, and then walked through it.

Mireia scrambled to catch up to him, feeling rather dubiously along the wall to make sure she went through at the right place. It was a very weird sensation, going through a wall. She could tell it was still there and yet it didn't seem to exist where her body went through.

On the other side, Jareth was pulling down a ladder. He turned to her and steered her up the ladder, hands gripping her shoulders.

"Up you go. And rather quickly, if you don't mind." Mireia began to climb. A moment later, she could feel Jareth join her on the ladder. The whole thing creaked ominously.

"Are you sure this thing is going to hold?"

"We'll find out, won't we?" said Jareth with a hint of irritation. "Just climb."

Up and up and up, they climbed. Mireia's legs burned and her hands complained. Worse, she couldn't see the end in the dark. She came upon it rather suddenly and had a moment of panic when her hand met empty air. Then she pulled herself onto the platform at the top. They still appeared to be underground. This didn't seem to faze Jareth, however. A moment after Mireia, he climbed up beside her.

He knocked briskly at the wall and it swung open. Stepping out, Mireia saw that they had been in a hollow tree. Its door swung closed promptly after they stepped out and then the outline disappeared. The ground continued to shiver under them.

Jareth was already taking big, long strides, and once again Mireia was forced to jog to keep up with him. She didn't, however, complain. The situation was clearly more serious that Jareth had been letting on. Her little brother was in that castle while something was disturbing the Labyrinth and subverting it's creatures. Since Jareth was leading the way, she had quite a lot of time to think.

Her mind gravitated back to her earlier thoughts about magic. The crystal still bobbed along against her thigh. She slipped her hand in her pocket to hold it for inspiration. Where could she acquire magic? she wondered, as she watched Jareth's legs for direction. The Labyrinth seemed to be made of it. Surely she could find it if Sarah had found it. But that's silly, she thought. Sarah had it before she came to the Labyrinth.

And then something clicked.

If she'd had it before she came to the Labyrinth, then perhaps it wasn't something to be acquired after all. Perhaps she'd just had to figure out how to use it. Wishes seemed to work rather well here.

Fingering the crystal, she phrased the wish carefully in her mind. It took a little bit of doing and she took her time, because wishing was a tricky thing. She didn't want to get it wrong. The crystal grew warm, and if she had looked down, she would have seen it begin to glow very faintly. Then she was ready.

"I wish," she said clearly, putting every ounce of will into it that she possessed. "That Jareth and I were at the source of the Labyrinth's trouble, right now!"

Jareth stopped in his tracks and turned around to look at her in surprise. Then as they both began to fade, his look turned to one of annoyance.

"So you've discovered your magic," he said softly. "Pity you got the wish wrong."


	15. Mireia Further Underground

_"Pity you got the wish wrong"_

They were immediately swept up in _something_. Mireia wasn't sure what, because she couldn't truly feel her body--that was, until a gloved hand closed around her wrist. Then they hung inside of that something for an indeterminate period of time. She tried to think--about anything--tried to zero in on her wish and what Jareth had said about it, but she couldn't. Her brain wouldn't focus. It was like trying to read a sign with something in her eye, only worse.

The hand on her wrist tightened and Mireia realized they were no longer hanging, but falling. Her hair whipped straight up and her sweater tried to do the same. She shrugged it mostly off, except where Jareth was clasping her wrist, and said a small prayer of thanks that her shirt was tucked in. The globe she'd carried for what seemed like forever was gone. She supposed her wish had done that.

Just as she was starting to feel a bit sick, they landed rather abruptly on a hard dirt floor. Mireia didn't know if they'd been falling abnormally slow or if Jareth had done something to soften the landing but aside from what felt like a few bruises, she was perfectly alright. It took her a minute to get her breath back, though. When she could finally breath again, she tried sitting up. Beside her Jareth was stretched out, elegant even while unconscious. He didn't stir. She looked him over for obvious injuries, but no skin was broken, no limbs were at the wrong angle. His pulse was strong. He just looked asleep. She already knew something was wrong, but now it was _very_ wrong. If they were at the source of the trouble and the only one who could fix it had been knocked out...

She looked around to see where they had landed.

They were in a wide circle of light, reaching to maybe twice her height. But beyond the light was complete darkness. It was like being on stage in the school play. The audience was completely hidden.

And in this case, she particularly hoped there wasn't one.

The air had a cold, stale, dirt-smell, which led Mireia to picture the space around them as an open cave. Every so often she felt a teasing wisp of air hardly enough to be called a breeze.

The next thing to do seemed to be to wander outside of the circle of light. There was nowhere else to go. On the other hand, she didn't want to go out in the dark to be gotten by who-knew-what. And she'd be leaving Jareth here, unconscious and unarmed. She looked at his face, handsome and relaxed, arms sprawled gracefully. How could she leave him here? She knelt beside him and watched his chest rise and fall gently.

"Jareth," she said. "Jareth, wake up." Tentatively, she put a hand out and grasped his shoulder through the spikes of his coat. She could feel warm muscle and hard bone under her hand. She shook him gently. There was no response. She shook him again, harder this time. He continued his slow, even breathing, not even stirring. With a quick glance around, she tried the only other thing she could think of. Swallowing down a sudden flash of nervousness, she leaned over him and lightly brushed his lips with her own.

"You won't wake him up that way," said a voice. Mireia jerked back so fast that she nearly hurt her neck. The voice was a deep rocky voice, sort of like how she'd imagined the false alarms would sound, only less pompous. It crunched and rumbled. After her heart had gotten out of her throat, Mireia thought carefully about how she would respond. 'Who are you," seemed to lack something. She doubted the voice would spell it out for her anyway. Besides, she thought she might have an idea about who the voice could belong to, already.

"How can I wake him up?" she asked.

"You can't." There was a rumbling, which might have been a laugh.

"What can wake him up?" she asked.

"Oh, many things."

"Are any of those things that I can do?" After this question there was a long pause and Mireia feared she had asked the wrong question after all.

"Yes," said the voice at last. "There is one." Before Mireia could prompt it, she noticed that her circle of light had begun to dim. Trying to stamp down her panic, she stood up and stood over Jareth. Then, just before she gave way to panic, she realized that the light wasn't dimming--it was diffusing. It was spreading out into the space around then, faintly lighting the outlines of a large cave. Mireia swallowed hard when she saw the full extent of what lay around her. It was an underground Labyrinth. The dim light just picked out the high walls. She could see-just barely-more walls twisting off into the darkness. There were two ways to enter into it from the ring of stone that she and Jareth had fallen into. They were identical except that they led in opposite directions.

"If you can get to the heart of this Labyrinth, you will find something there that can wake him. Then you must find your way back to him."

"Will he be safe here while I'm gone?" Mireia asked.

"Of course." If gravel could be insulted, that was what it would sound like.

"Do I have a time limit?"

"None beyond your own endurance." This was a serious limit, Mireia knew. She'd been up well over eighteen hours by now and had had no food and not much water after she'd left the castle. Her nap at Sabina's hadn't really helped. It could scarcely be called a nap anyway. At least Jareth was getting some rest now.

She couldn't do anything else but go and find the way to wake Jareth. Even if she could have gotten out of here without Jareth--and she could have asked the voice different questions to that end--she couldn't just leave him here. He'd protected her through the Labyrinth. She'd never be able to live with herself, not to mention that she and Michael would have no way to get back.

She saw now that her magic, previously unsuspected, had sent and she and Jareth to this place with her wish, and it had also probably made she and Michael's playing and pretending more potent, which is what had gotten them here in the first place. Mireia had a feeling she wouldn't be allowed to cheat like that in this labyrinth. This was an old kind of Labyrinth. It was colder and more full of logic and death. Mistakes wouldn't lead to new friends here, but to nasty pits where she could starve to death.

"And if I fail?" Mireia asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

"You will wander until your death, and Jareth will not wake."

"Why?"

"Why does the Earth turn and the sun give light?" an amused rumble rolled across Mireia. "This is the way it works. You may not intimately understand the Earth's path, but you accept that it is there. Accept this, too. Your task is a product of the place you are in. If this wasn't the way, there would be no Labyrinth as you know it."

Mireia had one last question and she wasn't entirely sure it was allowed, but she was definitely going to ask it anyway.

"Which way should I go to reach the heart?" There was a pregnant pause. Then, finally, the voice seemed to have decided to reply after all.

"Both could lead you there. Both have traps. But you might find an unexpected benefit to the left. And now I may not say anything else. Once outside of this circle, I cannot speak to you."

"Okay," said Mireia, taking a deep breath. And because it never hurt to be polite, "Thank you." And with a last look back at Jareth's peaceful, beautiful face, so bereft of its usual mocking expression, Mireia went into the Labyrinth.


	16. Michael Further Underground

Michael's first reaction upon stepping through the door was a relief so profound he nearly stopped breathing. His second was immediate and just as intense suspicion.

Spread out before him in exacting detail was his father's study. It couldn't possibly be his father's study and yet it was. There was the spot on the carpet where Michael had spilled his orange soda. His mother's sewing was in the corner where it usually was. And just as dusty with disuse as usual. The papers on the desk looked freshly rustled. As if his father had just been in here minutes ago. Michael's throat closed without warning. He wanted his parents horribly bad. He'd always loved them, but he'd never wanted them here with him quite as bad as this. It also hit him for the first that he might not see them again. He had no idea how to get out of this land, and he wasn't going without Mireia, anyway. The thought of getting home without Mireia was even more awful than never going home again.

He walked around the desk, breathing in the familiar paper-smell and sat in his father's big chair. He didn't touch the papers, but peered at them. They were some sort of bill or statement. And then he noticed the date--the exact date that he had accidentally (okay, disbelievingly) wished Mireia away. Was it part of the trick, or had no time passed in the normal course of things? This heartened Michael, enough so that he could push his grief-tinged-with-panic back down to manageable levels.

The door he'd entered through was still there, having swung closed, but it looked strange for the study door. There was nothing to do but go back the way he'd come. This was a dead end. He approached the door and tugged it back open by holding the grills. It slid obligingly inward. Michael started towards the opening. Only to stop abruptly when he realized that he wasn't heading into the same place as he'd been. There was no blue-lit underground tunnel of false alarms.

In fact, it was fairly hard to see anything beyond the door because the light was so dim. He sensed more than saw two walls rise up on either side of the door and a warm musky emptiness in the middle. It was still the only way to go, even if he wasn't precisely going back. He was being led. To what, he didn't know and didn't particularly want to think about. Turning back into the room, he looked around for anything useful. There was the emergency candle in the bottom drawer of the desk for when the power went out. He remembered a snickers bar he'd hidden behind one of the books ages ago and put that in his pocket beside the candle. And then there was his mother's sewing. He approached it thoughtfully and disturbed the coat of dust in order to dig around in the basket. There was some embroidery thread left over from an abandoned project. Something to do with making costumes for the community theater group. There was a lot of it left, thankfully, and it was an annoying shade of bright orange.

Michael made his way back to the door and tied the end of the thread to the grill of the door, making sure the worm wasn't there. Then, with a deep breath and a last look at the study, he pulled the door closed and started slowly off into the darkness, one hand outstretched so that he wouldn't run into anything.

He wandered in a straight line for quite a while. Occasionally there were drifts of different air from the sides of whatever corridor Michael was walking down, but he didn't leave to explore. He wanted to go straight for as long as possible--the better to find his way back, although what good that would do him, he didn't know. The darkness was starting to creep him out. He was doing his best to ignore the feeling, but he knew eventually he'd probably have to give ground to his fear. It reminded him of the time they'd gone to the children's science museum and he'd crawled through the touch tunnel with the rest of the children. The textures changed under hand, and sometimes the walls would disappear. At first it had been exciting, but soon, after it had gone on for what seems too long, He'd started to become afraid. And that was how he felt now. Except this wasn't a controlled exhibit. There might not be an end to this place. He shoved the thought away as forcefully as he could manage.

It was a relief to feel his fingers finally jolt up against a wall. He felt carefully to the left a few feet and encountered another wall, so he switched directions and started feeling down the other way, all the while debating about lighting the candle. He didn't want to waste even a second if he could do it without sight, but at the same time, it was so incredibly uncomfortable not being able to see anything.

He was still debating when he ran face first into something living--and furry.

Michael screamed. He couldn't help it.


	17. Into the Old Labyrinth

Mireia soon realized that the diffusion of light did not help her at all. If she looked up she could very vaguely see something that might be the overhead walls of the cave, but down here at labyrinth level, there was nearly no light. She had no idea what to do, so she just kept walking in a straight line. At least, she thought it was straight. It could be curving very slowly.

The floor underfoot was smooth and barrier-less. She heard nothing. The silence was starting to become oppressive, actually. Nearly as oppressive as her thoughts. How did one find the heart of the Labyrinth? Come to think of it, how did one know when one had found the heart of the Labyrinth? Was there a sign? Great treasure? Another castle? She hoped it was easily recognizable.

Lost in these thoughts, she didn't notice what was in her path until she'd kicked it. With a short and hastily stifled shriek, Mireia jumped back and strained in the darkness to see it. A stick? A white stick.

A bone!

She didn't scream this time. She just scrambled back as fast as possible, sitting down hard a few feet away. After a few seconds spent calming down, she tried to reason with herself. It might be an animal, not a person, she thought. At least it's already dead.

She approached again, cautiously and walked carefully around it. Her foot encountered something else. Taking a sharp breath, she felt it with her foot. It felt too regularly shaped to be another bone. Trepidation informing her every move, she squatted and picked it up, feeling along the shape as she went. It seemed to be a large ring box. It must have been knocked free when she tripped on the bone. She opened it and felt inside. Nothing. Well, you never knew when it would come in handy. She put in in her pocket, and then faced the general direction of the bones. "Thank you," she said softly, feeling that something need to be said.

"What're you thanking me for?"

Mireia jumped a mile. Maybe two. It took her a moment to register that the question had not come from the skeleton. It had come from further on down, in the dark of the Labyrinth. It was a mid-pitched voice, impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman.

"I wasn't thanking you," said Mireia, trying to keep her voice out of the wobbly range. "Who are you?"

"That's not something I'm just going to tell you."

"Why not?"

"I don't know you."

"Yes, but how would you get to know me if neither of us told each other our names?"

"Who said I wanted to know you?"

"No one, I guess. Fine." Mireia paused, wondering first if the person was dangerous, and second if they would help her. "If you even know, will you tell me how to get to the heart of the Labyrinth?"

"I know how. But I can hardly tell you. How would I give directions in the dark?"

"Then could you guide me there?"

There was a long pause. It occurred to Mireia that she was fairly desperate or she wouldn't be asking for help from someone she couldn't see.

"I could," said the voice at last. "Whether I would remains to be seen."

"Would you guide me there, then?"

"I might. Except there is the small matter of my chains."

Mireia took a startled breath. "Chains?" she inquired.

"I can not lead you anywhere while I'm bound. I could, however, if you were to take the chains off of me."

"I think I'd rather know why you're in chains to begin with," said Mireia. Upon reflection, she probably should have been more suspicious of any voice in the vicinity of a skeleton.

"It's such a tedious story." The voice sounded bored.

"I don't think I can free you," said Mireia carefully.

"Then have fun getting to the center without me," the voice chuckled. It was then that Mireia realized she didn't know any other way to go but straight forward, which was where the owner of the voice and presumably the chains existed. The voice had started into another chuckle just before a scream cut across it.

After her heart had gotten back the beat it skipped, it started to beat faster in anticipation. That scream had sounded exactly like the one Michael had produced the time she'd hidden in his closet until dark and pretended to be a monster. Best of all, it was coming from the left, which meant there was more Labyrinth over there, not far away. She put her hand to the wall and felt along it until her hand encountered air.

Without bothering to say good-bye to the chained entity, she stumbled quickly towards where she'd heard the voice. "Michael!" she called. She thought she heard his small voice. Another one answered it. Who was there with Michael? She picked up her pace and caught her shoulder on a wall. Ignoring it, she ran on, hands straight out in front of her. It was quite a shock when she was jolted to a stop by a fuzzy wall.

"What the--!" She exclaimed.

"Mireia?" came Michael's voice from the other side of the wall.

"Michael!" she yelled. "Stay right there! I'm going to try and climb over this wall!"

"Wait Mireia! It's not a wall!"

"What?" she asked, jumping away from the fur. "What is it then?"

"It's Mooreland. The sand elk."

"A sand elk?" repeated Mireia, at a loss.

"Yes," rumbled Mooreland.

"You two...uh...know each other?"

"We saved each other from minotaurs," said Michael cheerfully, edging around Mooreland. He located Mireia by touch, but she'd heard him coming and didn't flinch. "Hold on, I'll light my candle."

"You have a candle?" said Mireia. "If I could see you, I might kiss you."

"Just as well." A match flared and Mireia could suddenly see Michael's familiar face. She suddenly felt ten times better. Mireia threw her arms around her little brother. He hugged her back.

"I was really worried about you, you know," said Mireia.

"So was I about you," Michael returned. "At least now we're together and we don't have to do this thing alone."

"Yes!" Mireia agreed with feeling. "Er...nice to meet you Mooreland."

"Pleasure is all mine," he replied. They were all rather at a loss after that. Finally, Mooreland broke the silence. "Do you have any idea how to get out of here?" asked Mooreland.

"No," Mireia admitted reluctantly. "I can't leave anyway. I have to get to the heart of the Labyrinth, first."

"Why?" asked Michael. He looked curious, but not adverse.

"Well, because Jareth is asleep and I can't just leave him like that, and this voice said I could find something in the middle of the Labyrinth that would wake him up and we can't get out of the underground without him anyway." Mireia ran out of breath.

"There was a voice?" asked Michael suspiciously.

"Two, actually. One sounded like disembodied gravel and the other is back the way I came. That one is chained up."

Michael peered back the way she'd come. "I think that's the only way to go," he said. "And I'm going to have to blow out the candle so we can save it for when we really need it."

"Yeah," Mireia agreed reluctantly. He snuffed it and they were all three silent for a moment, contemplating the large, dark, dangerousness that surrounded them.

"I think when we get back to the thing that's chained, we'd better light the candle again. You and I might be able to edge passed it, but Mooreland probably can't in the dark."

"Okay. How far is it?"

"Well, I ran all the way over here in half a minute. So, very close I'd say." They all heard the rasp of chain on stone. "And getting closer."

Mireia felt a faint clench of her stomach. Chained things coming out of the dark towards her were a little too close to her nightmares for comfort. She groped for Michael's hand and braced herself for an attack, or at least the sight of something very scary. Michael let go of her hand to re-light the candle, and then grabbed it again. His smaller palm was sweaty and shaky in hers and she suddenly felt a whole lot braver. It was easy to be brave when there was someone else to pretend for. "It's okay, Michael," she heard herself say. "The chains must be for something." And Mooreland was a large and comforting presence at their back.

"Maybe you two should get behind me. Or under me," he suggested. He didn't have to say it twice. Mireia and Michael crouched down, between Mooreland's hooves. And then they simply waited as the sound of dragging chains got closer. The noise stopped just beyond the curve of wall, beyond the small light the candle provided.

"Who are you?" demanded Michael. "And what do you want?"

"Well now," said the same voice Mireia had debated with earlier. "I already answered the first question once. As for the second, I want out of these chains."

"You didn't answer the first question," protested Mireia. "You refused to answer it. And how can we let you out of your chains if we don't know who you are?"

"I don't have a name. At least, not one that was worth remembering."

"Then what are you?" asked Mooreland, sounding slightly impatient.

"There is no name for that, either," said the thing. And it stepped into the light.


	18. The Center of the Labyrinth

Mireia experienced the most uncomfortable sensation she'd ever had in her life-the feeling of her mind trying to back away from what she was seeing. As this was impossible, aside from maybe fainting--and she couldn't do that to Michael--she crouched next to him shaking and trying not to spring backwards away from...it.

"It" was a grayish dog, almost a wolf. Except that it had too much eye socket and not enough eye. Only patches of decaying fur remained. Only patches of decaying skin remained, for that matter. Mireia wondered distantly if she would throw up.

"What is wrong with you, wolf?" asked Mooreland. He sounded fairly unshaken, but then he did have a different sort of vocal chords than either of the children had.

"Wolf?" rasped the thing, its jaw sagging horribly. "Ah, I see. Is that what I look like now? As for what's wrong with me--I have a...disease."

"You look dead," said Michael, making a valiant attempt to keep his voice steady, in Mireia's opinion.

"That's because I should be," it replied. Mireia found she couldn't stop looking at its sagging jaw, no matter how it horrified her. "All part of the sickness. I should have died forever ago, in places that are extinct."

"Is the disease...contagious?" Mireia asked. She sounded a little high-pitched to herself, but otherwise under control.

"Oh, yes. I could give it to all you. I have only to bite you." It gnashed its teeth and all three of them flinched back as one. It gave a dry little laugh. "But what good would that do me? You won't free me if I infect you."

"Why were you chained?" she asked next. All of them transferred their gaze to the heavy chains draped both over its back and wound around its legs.

"They didn't know I was...sick. They thought I was out for their precious flesh. They're all dead now." This time the laugh was gurgled and yucky. Mireia felt the sound skitter down her arm hairs, raising each one. "And it wasn't I who finally killed them either, but that impartial evil, Time."

"What about the skeleton?" she demanded.

"There's a skeleton?" Michael's voice cracked slightly on the word.

"Not my doing."

They each considered in silence. Then Michael shifted beside her and asked, "If we free you, would you bite us then?"

"Not if I could finally die. I would have no reason."

"What would kill you?"

"The cure to the disease. In the center of the Labyrinth. I know the way, but it does me no good to go there without someone who can remove my chains."

"Why would chains prevent you from getting the cure and dying?" asked Michael.

"Have you seen the heart of this Labyrinth?" it asked.

"No."

"Then you do not know how high the cure is, or even what it is. I can't reach it weighed down. You can't touch it without being cured--with a death that should be mine." Skin shook as it paced with impatience. "I will lead you there, if you will unchain me when we arrive."

Mireia and Michael looked at each other in silent communication. Neither of them could trust a thing that looked--and technically was--a dog corpse. On the other hand, their only other option seemed to be to wander around indefinitely, until their imminent starvation, or the minuscule chance of success.

"Okay--I guess." Mireia tried to muster some confidence. "We'll trade help for help."

"Alright," said Michael, looking uneasily at the flame on his candle. "Mooreland?"

"I suppose it's the only way I'm going to see the sands again. After that, I'm never setting hoof in this place again."

"Me neither," said Michael. They climbed cautiously to their feet.

"Uh..." said Michael. "Even if the candle would last the whole way there, which it won't, we'll need it even more on the way back." He paused, knelt suddenly, and scrabbled over the smooth, dusty floor. A moment later, with a look of profound relief, he came up with a piece of orange ending in a giant wad of embroidery thread. "We can get back to here at least. If the thread lasts."

Mireia nodded approvingly at his forethought, though she had no clue where he'd gotten the stuff. It didn't matter terribly at the moment.

"Can you see in the dark, wolf?" she asked.

"I don't see anything," it said. "But I can find my way, yes."

"Then could we, um, could we hold on very, very lightly to your chains so that you could lead in the dark?" It was silent for a long time. She would be glad, Mireia thought, when she couldn't see the candlelight picking out each undead part of the thing.

"Yes. Tug too hard, though, and I will...break." Mireia's stomach turned at the thought and she felt Michael give a little shudder beside her.

"We'll be very careful."

"Then grab a hold of the ones over my back. They are the loosest."

Very warily, Michael and Mireia moved to either side of the wolf and tried not to think too hard about what they were doing. Mooreland followed. When they each had an end, with Mooreland's trunk gripping Michael's shoulder, Mireia said, "Ready."

The wolf started forward. Michael took a deep breath and blew out the candle.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Mireia realized she was no longer quite so afraid. She decided it was because being very afraid and avoiding running into walls at every turn in the path were mutually exclusive. And wolves--even dead ones--could jog quite a lot more easily than humans, especially now that some of the wolf's chains were being carried by others. In contrast to how she'd felt before, Mireia almost felt secure now. There was a scary undead thing guarding the front and a large, solid, and above all friendly sand elk at her back.

It was as she was having these somewhat comforting thoughts and twisting to avoid touching both the wall and the wolf, that their guide barked, "Stop." Mireia stopped as fast as she could and still slid a little ways on the smooth stone ground.

"What?" Michael asked.

"There is a wall in front of us that is not supposed to be there."

"Well, doesn't it change all the time?" asked Mireia, thinking of her earlier encounters with Jareth. "There must be a trick."

"Not here. Not in the Old Labyrinth. Nothing changes here except the thickness of the dust and the arrangement of the skeletons."

"Well, it must have changed," said Michael. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," the wolf's voice had gotten more and more whispery as they progressed and Mireia shuddered to think that it was probably because its vocal chords were holding up as well as the rest of its body-which is to say, not so well.

"Jareth is unconscious--would that do something to it?" asked Mireia. And then she immediately wondered if it was wise to spread that information around. She shrugged in the dark. She couldn't take it back.

"It might. But he is King of the Goblins and only has control over the upper Labyrinth. The Old Labyrinth has no king."

"What do we do about the wall?" asked Michael impatiently. Mireia was torn between annoyance at him for changing the subject and a reluctant feeling that his question had more bearing on the situation than hers. She had wanted to ask what governed the Old Labyrinth.

"I don't know. In a thousand years I have never known another way to the center."

Mooreland spoke up, clearing his throat in a quiet trumpet. "Michael is good at finding doors where there weren't any before."

"I don't--" said Michael. His voice cracked slightly and he coughed and tried again. "That was only in the upper Labyrinth. It probably won't work here."

Mireia reassessed her brother with new interest. He'd opened doors? She already knew she'd underestimated him, as he had gotten to Jareth's castle without even having been hurt. But what was this about doors?

"How did you open doors?" she asked.

So Michael obligingly explained about the oubliette and the minotaurs and added in the part about the Mirror room. When he was finished, Mireia said, "You'd better try it." She paused. "This wall is obviously not supposed to be here. Maybe you can make it back into a doorway."

"I don't think I can." Michael said doubtfully. Mireia heard him sigh noisily and move forward, trying not to touch the wolf. She heard his hand slap onto the stone wall. They stood in tense silence for a long moment.

"It...worked," said Michael, astonishment plain in his voice. There came the sound of a door handle being twisted. A kind of mechanical 'click' and then there was a draft of air from beyond. To Mireia it smelled slightly of plants, green and damp.

They felt from the tug of chains that the wolf had stepped forward. It rasped back at them, "This is the center. It is not where it was before, but here it is, just as you requested. Unchain me." It was not a request. And they had made a deal. Swallowing hard, Mireia carefully felt down her end of the chain and tried valiantly to unhook the collar without touching anything unpleasant. To her surprise, its skin didn't feel nearly as horrible as she'd thought. Sort of leathery and dry. Her fingers finally found the relatively simple clasp and unhooked it just as Michael struck a match.

For a brief, eerie moment, they (excluding perhaps the wolf) could see a gigantic primeval garden. There was the suggestion of trees so large it would take an army of men to stretch their arms around the base. Roots the size of houses writhed out in all directions. Weeds and unrecognizable shrubbery grew in profusion everywhere. Overhead, canopies of the trees ran into each other and melded into one living ceiling. At the same time, things didn't look quite right. It was very hard for Mireia to put her finger on why, but she suspected it had something to do with the fact that these trees clearly did not live on light. They stirred strangely when the match light touched them.

The wolf growled and coughed. "No, you little wretch!" it snarled as it dove for Michael. Michael gave a strangled scream and the match went out.


	19. The Sphinx

Mireia really wanted to scream, too, but after Michael's horribly abrupt one, there grew a rustling on all sides of them. Still, she had to risk one small noise.

"Michael?" she asked. Her answer was half-affirmation half-whimper. She crawled carefully towards that sound as the rustles got louder and decidedly more ominous. Every moment she expected to run into the wolf or something else unpleasant, but when she finally touched something other than ground, it was the material of Michael's shirt, with warm but shivering Michael underneath.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"It b-bit me!" he said. Mireia felt her stomach pinch. Her little brother was going to become like that thing? He couldn't! There had to be something they could do about it. Jareth. She'd convince Jareth to do something. Except he never did anything like that for free. Neither of them were up to another trot through his Labyrinth. Wait! Michael still had a wish. Sure, it was meant to get her back, but surely being a Goblin was better than being an undead, unable-to-die, thing. It couldn't be that bad, right? Drinking, avoiding getting kicked, snickering. She could handle that much more easily than watching her baby brother decaying.

"Don't worry," she told him with a lot more firmness than she felt. "Jareth can fix it. First we've got to find whatever it is that will wake him up and get out of here. Soon. Mooreland?"

"Here," he said in what was clearly an attempt at a whisper. "I don't think we should talk."

"I don't think so, either. And no light," she added. She slid an arm under Michael and helped him stand. Then she guided them both towards Mooreland. There they stood, shivering under Mooreland's haunches as the rustling started carrying other sounds, animal sounds and wind sounds. None of the noises were strictly pleasant. And the louder they grew the less any of them wanted to move or speak. It seemed best to pretend to be part of the landscape.

Something slid across Mireia's foot and she bit her lip. More somethings slid past her ankle and ruffled her hair. She shut her eyes, even though she could hardly tell they were closed in the utter darkness of the center. The rustlings and slitherings became more frequent until they were everywhere and Mireia felt leaves and sticks and wings and things she didn't even want to name brush by all around her. She would have screamed except she didn't want to get any of the stuff in her mouth. The blind noise and the whoosh drown out even her breathing and her heartbeat until Mireia felt as if she were deaf as well as blind. Was she imagining it or was the ground rumbling underneath them? Would it ever end or were they stuck here forever being driven slowly insane?

Then, suddenly, everything was silent. The air felt warm and stirred-up but it was empty. She found that Michael and she had been clenching hands and she carefully loosened her fingers without letting go.

There was no sound and no light and it made her want to throw some kind of panicky tantrum. Then they heard a slight noise. She felt Michael stiffen at her side. The noise resolved itself into unsteady footsteps. A low whispery voice sounded some feet away from them.

"I found this." There was a small 'tap' on her shoe, making her jump. "Thank you." Then there came the quiet but unmistakable sound of something collapsing to the ground. She knelt and started to reach for whatever small thing had rolled near her, then hesitated. How to touch it without touching it? Feeling for her pocket, she pulled out the jewelry case that she'd taken from the skeleton. With the corner of her shirt she prodded whatever it was into the case and snapped it shut. When she stood back up she found that she was shaking all over.

"Let's go," she said. Michael offered no protest. "Can you carry Michael, Mooreland?" she asked.

"Of course." A soft trunk brushed by her and scooped Michael up. As one, they backed out into the corridor and Mireia scrambled around on hand and knee until she'd located the end of the embroidery thread. With a hand on Mooreland's side, she led them back in silence, still shaking.

****

Michael tried to think through the fog of pain in his wrist. It was very hard but since he'd had more practice thinking than anything else, he eventually got the hang of it. The trick was that you had to have a different sort of thoughts when you were in pain. They came in a slow, hypnotizing rhythm to try and distract from the hurting. His wrist was slippery with blood, which was how he knew that it was a fairly bad bite, but also that it wasn't life-threatening or he'd have passed out by now.

He couldn't think about what having been bitten by that thing meant yet. That was the only good thing about hurting so much. It didn't leave room for speculation. The thoughts were more immediate, like, "Just a little further. You're okay, you're okay, you're okay."

But he also knew that there was something he should be remembering that went beyond that litany. What was it? What was it, what was it, what was it?

It didn't come to him until he heard Mireia say, "Hello skeleton. I'm glad to see you, but only because it's almost over."

"Skeleton," Michael croaked.

"Yes, I told you about him, remember?" she said gently.

"If the wolf didn't kill--who did?" he got out. There was a silence from below.

"I don't know," she said at last. "It doesn't matter now. We're almost there."

"Almost," said a new voice. It was strong and female and neither kind nor harsh.

"Michael, do you have the candle?" asked Mireia, so calm she must really be frightened out of her mind. He fumbled in his pocket and found the candle, handing it down to her before he remembered.

"No matches," he said.

"Don't worry about that," said the voice. "Hold your little candle straight out and I'll light it for you."

"Um," said Mireia.

"Oh don't worry, I don't plan on hurting you now. These things have to be done properly." This pronouncement was hardly reassuring. But then, once again, they had little choice in the matter. Whatever-it-was was blocking the way and they could hardly turn around.

Michael saw a thin flame shoot out into the darkness and then it was gone, leaving Mireia gingerly holding a lit candle. Not four feet away lounged a giant patchwork animal. A large body with yellow fur blocked the passage. Wings were tucked neatly at its sides. And the open, intelligent face of a pretty woman watched them expectantly. The sphinx yawned and got casually to its feet.

"I was wondering when someone would come along. I have a new riddle and everything." She paused to lick her teeth and eye Mooreland speculatively. "And I'm hungry." Mooreland made an uncomfortable noise and took a step back.

"If we don't answer this new riddle you'll eat us?" Mireia squeaked.

"Oh, no," said the sphinx her face showing beautiful disbelief. "First I'll strangle you. Then I'll eat you."

This conversation was succeeding in making Michael forget about his wrist for a brief time. Would it hurt a lot worse, for instance, to be strangled as opposed to bitten?

"What's this riddle then?" Mireia was saying. "And how long do we get?"

"You get until I decide you're not going to get the answer and I get too hungry." She tossed her hair back and fluttered her wings. "You've come into my Labyrinth, that is the price you're required to pay. Here is your riddle:

"I sought my first in starry skies Where shines the April sun; My second came before my eyes, And warned me to be done.

'Tis Very hard to lose one's sight; I'm blind as bat or mole; Once hills and fields were my delight, Now I'm no more my whole."

"Michael?" said Mireia in the first unsteady voice she'd ever let him hear.

"I'm thinking," he said, through teeth that he'd only just realized were clenched with the effort to not hurt.

_'I sought my first in starry skies,'_ he thought. _But the sun is also shining and it's April. Well, it's a something. At least I don't have to guess what the speaker is. I hate those. 'My second' means it is a repeating phenomenon. And it obviously made the speaker blind. The last verse was mostly a trick to distract you from knowing that you're looking for the "what" the speaker is talking about, not the speaker themselves._

Michael bumped his wrist and it twinged painfully, making him aware that the Sphinx was pacing. He watched it nervously while he waited for the pain shooting through his whole arm to calm down again.

Bat or mole makes you think it has something to do with being underground, but it can't because there's a starry sky and April sun. That must be another trick. He went back to the first stanza. What happens at night while it's sunny? Or maybe the other way around--in the day time with stars? No--And then it came to him. An eclipse. Quickly, he ran through the rest of the verse. An eclipse could blind a person, couldn't it? That's why they used mirrors and sunglasses at school. That had to be it.

Michael pushed himself--one armed--away from where he'd been resting on Mooreland's fur. The Sphinx turned her face towards him and he shuddered slightly with the hunger he saw there.

"The answer is: an eclipse."

It happened gradually, as they all warily watched the Sphinx. She did not move, merely stood watching them in an unfocused sort of way. Then she nodded once and she changed. It was the sort of change that left one to wonder if they'd actually seen it or just imagined it happening--like you'd imagine a shadow moving in a dark room.

The Sphinx no longer looked hungry but infinitely wise instead. The eyes in the woman's face were deep pools of nobility. She sat straight-backed on her haunches and looked at them.

"Pass," she said. Even as she said it as soft burst of wind came down the passage and blew out the candle. Though he could not see it, Michael thought the passage in front of them felt empty.

"C'mon," said Mireia, the determination back in her voice as she led the way slowly and as straight as she could manage back to where Jareth lay unconscious. Michael might have asked what she was going to do, precisely, but it didn't seem worth it. He went back to trying to ignore his arm. That was, until they stepped into a dim circle, surrounded by smooth stonewalls. The dimness looked like a blaze of light after the complete darkness of the Old Labyrinth. In the middle of the circle, Jareth was sprawled, snoring very faintly. This succeeded in distracting Michael for a while because he'd never imagined even the possibility of seeing Jareth like this.

He glanced over at Mireia, who was watching Jareth with a strange expression on her face.

"Mireia?"

"He looks so different," she said absently.

"Not that much," he said. "Just more relaxed." He decided he didn't entirely approve of her expression after all. "Are you going to wake him up, or what?" Michael asked, trying to goad her into action.

"Yes." She seemed to shake herself. "Of course. That was the point." She knelt beside him and pulled the jewelry box out of her pocket. When she opened it, with her back to Michael, all he heard was a dismayed noise.

"What? What's wrong?" he asked anxiously.

"Did you lose it?" asked Mooreland, equally nervous sounding.

"No, it's just-this can't be it. It's a seed." She turned around and showed them the slightly damp peach pit resting on the cheap blue velvet of the jewelry box. Michael collapsed carefully onto Mooreland's back again and tried not to weep with frustration.

But Mooreland had different ideas. "Well?" he asked. "What are you waiting for? Put it in his mouth and let's get on with it. The Bog may have dried some, but I still smell worse than the goblins."

"I was going to ask you about that, but it didn't seem polite," Mireia admitted, brightening slightly. "Do you really think I should give it to him? I'm almost certain it came from whatever killed the wolf."

"So what?" Mooreland said. "If the pit was poison, the wolf would have eaten that, too." Michael thought this sounded fairly good.

"I think you'd better do it Mireia," he said.

"Okay." She took a deep breath and turned back to Jareth. She pried open his mouth with one hand and carefully dumped the pit into it, trying not to laugh nervously at the sight. Then she let his mouth close. Nothing happened. So she put her hand out to pry his mouth open again and see if she could get him to swallow the seed.

A surprisingly strong hand flew up and seized her hand, startling a brief shriek out of her. Michael gave a strange sort of hiccup. They all watched as Jareth opened his eyes. His other hand came up to his mouth and they all watched, perplexed, as he drew out a silver and gold pendant. He looked at it, brows drawn together, then he palmed it and sat up.

"Are you okay?" asked Mireia.

"I dreamt that a white owl kissed me." Jareth's disorientation seemed to drain away and his gaze sharpened on Mireia. "Yes. I'm fine. What is that smell?" He glanced towards Mooreland. "Oh, the Bog. I see. And Michael. What have you done to your arm?"

"I was bitten," said Michael, feeling inexplicably sullen and sheepish at once.

Jareth was silent. Instead, he stood up and straightened his clothing, while Mireia watched him, looking faintly worried. "How did I get the wish wrong?" she asked when he continued to remain silent.

"Perhaps I'll tell you later, if it's relevant." He didn't even look at Mireia as he spoke. Instead, he was concentrating on Michael. "I believe Michael has something to say to me."

"Yes, he does," said Mireia. "He needs to wish to be cured, but not killed like the wolf we met. Go ahead Michael." Michael looked down to see Mireia's grim, determined face, and Jareth's intense yet rather expressionless face. He knew precisely what he had to do.

"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to inside the Old Labyrinth, to take back the sister that you have stolen."

"Michael!" Mireia shouted, so loud that it echoed. Both he and Jareth ignored her.

"My will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me." The last words came out so clear that they almost seemed solid in the still underground. Michael could vaguely hear Mireia crying in the background, but otherwise his words seemed to have taken up all the air.

"Stop, Mireia. This is no cause for grief," said Jareth. And with that, the crying stopped and Michael rather thought Mireia had been sent somewhere else, though he couldn't seem to gather sufficient wits to check, or even be concerned. "Bring him down," Jareth commanded Mooreland. Michael was aware of the leathery trunk wrapping gingerly around him and supporting him to the stone floor where he stood unsteadily on his feet.

"Your majesty," began Mooreland. "Might I ask that you heal-"

"No, you may not ask that," said Jareth. "Ask what you meant to ask and nothing else, or I will send you away to be dealt with later."

"But Michael-"

"Will also be dealt with," finished Jareth.

"I can't," said Mooreland.

"Very well, then. You will have to wait." Jareth blew a crystal as if it were a bubble at Mooreland, and the giant sand elk was gone.

"I'm going to turn into something undead, you know," said Michael, feeling sick and alone and rather let down.

"Not necessarily. Which is why I present you with this option. Listen well."


	20. The End

"Do you understand?" asked Jareth.

Michael, still pale, but not in pain any more, nodded.

"Very well. I'm sending you to the throne room."

"Okay," said Michael. He sounded subdued. Jareth supposed that the news he'd just delivered would subdue any child. Especially one as smart as Michael, who could understand the things he had not said as well.

Jareth blew a crystal at him, and then stared at the place he had been for a few moments, gathering his thoughts. Then he struck a commanding pose and looked upward.

"Speak, you annoying piece of stone," said Jareth.

"Why should I?" said a gravelly voice, gone petulant.

"Because I demand it."

"What would you like me to say?" it asked, now silky.

"I want to know what you're doing, turning my traps against me, whisking my magic out from under me. That's not the way things are supposed to work. We're supposed to be working together.

"I work for no one," said the voice. Gone was the silky, now it was stern and old and annoyed.

"Yes," said Jareth. "I work for you. We work to keep things as they should be."

"And how should they be?"

"How you need them to be, I suppose," said Jareth, sounding bored.

"I need something different now."

"Then couldn't you have just told me?" He touched the new-and-yet-old pendant around his neck.

"You weren't listening," The gravel was now patient.

Jareth was silent for a long moment. "I was busy," he said at last.

"Busy," sneered the voice. "With your challengers. Have you forgotten what they are for?"

"No," Jareth returned, shortly. "I remember. And I'm listening now. What is it you want besides what I've just gotten for you?"

"Nothing. That is the end I wanted. You've become bored. Your delight in your role has faded. I required a new Goblin King. Or Queen. I've never been picky about which. They were both suitable candidates.

"I know." Jareth was silent a moment. "You favored the boy."

"I favor no one. Including you."

*****

 

Mireia was sitting in a goblin house. It was small and messy, but very attractive just the same--like a tree fort was attractive, no matter how flimsy or ugly. She tried to decide how she should be feeling since she was feeling rather blank. Angry? She couldn't gather the energy to be angry. Sadness took more than she had, too, though she supposed there was a vague sadness in the back of her throat that refused to either go away or become actual tears.

In fact, the extraneous thought that wouldn't leave her alone no matter how stupid it was under the current circumstances was that Jareth had lied to her. He'd said he couldn't just "magic" people to and fro, and yet he'd done just that to her, even when she was no longer the captive, even after Michael had set them both free. Just when Michael needed her.

"Hello, Mireia," said Jareth.

Mireia jerked around to see him leaning in a doorway that shouldn't have fit him, with his usual superior expression firmly in place.

"You told me you couldn't magic people!" she accused, first thing. She sounded a little hysterical even to herself, but it made her feel immediately more sane.

"I couldn't at that point. But I could in the Old Labyrinth. The rules are somewhat different, there."

"Are you going to tell me why?" she asked, exasperated.

"Probably not," he admitted.

Her stomach growled.

"Hungry?" Jareth asked. He rolled a crystal over his wrist and was suddenly holding a peach.

"Not that hungry!" she said. But she couldn't keep herself from looking at it and involuntarily salivating. It really did look good. She suddenly knew how snow white had felt about the fatal apple. Her stomach felt like a canyon.

"It won't hurt you," he said, as if reading her mind. "I promise."

"Well" said Mireia. She thought about it. She was won back, she wasn't a challenger. He had no reason to poison her, or make her dream. And her stomach rumbled again. "Fine. Okay." She took the proffered peach and muttered, grudgingly, "Thank you," before she bit into it. She'd wolfed down half of it before she started to wonder about the taste. It didn't taste bad and it certainly tasted of ripe, utterly wonderful peach, but there was a funny after taste so subtle that it almost wasn't a taste at all. It was a strange, low hum in her ears, as if she'd leaned against the washer. Or there was a plane going by over head.

She glared muzzily at Jareth. "You lied," she said.

"I never lie," he replied. "At least, not out right," he amended. "And nothing I give you will ever hurt you."

Mireia saw she should have paid more attention to his exact wording. But she'd been so hungry. At least that had gone away. Now she was just vague.

"You drugged me."

"For your own good. Now you're off to a wonderful dream."

"I don't want--" she started to protest. Then she forgot what she was protesting about and wondered how she'd gotten into a glass garden. Everywhere around her were colorful glass flowers and plants, decorating as far as she could see, which wasn't very.

"Where am I?" she almost giggled at her own B-movie line, but she couldn't work up the hilarity. Then she remembered that that was because Jareth had given her a drugged peach. Even that didn't sound very important. "Jareth?" she called out into the still, light-filled place. "Why did you trick me?"

"So that you would listen to me without getting upset," he said, appearing from behind a brilliant Bird-of-Paradise plant.

Mireia nodded calmly. "What did you want to say that was upsetting?"

"I can't cure Michael. Neither can anything in the Labyrinth except what carried that wolf off." Jareth paused, looking faintly grim. "Death."

That announcement nearly served to completely sober Mireia up. But Jareth held up one gloved hand for patience. "However, there is a way I can hold back the sickness and make sure he won't die for a very long time--a longer time than he would have ever lived aboveground."

"You mean--he would have to stay in the Labyrinth?"

"Yes. But not just that." Jareth's face was impassive. He regarded her from behind unfathomable eyes. "Staying in the Labyrinth alone wouldn't solve anything. He'd only become like what you met below--a rotting creature unable to die. Can you guess what I am going to do?"

Mireia tried to think about it, but her brain felt slow and her mouth loose. She shook her head.

"Michael will be my successor."

"But he can't be king! You are!" Mireia protested weakly.

"Right now I am. I don't want to be one forever, and forever is something I don't have anyway. I have lived a long time and will live even longer, but it's hardly eternity. He will be tied to the Labyrinth after me and the Labyrinth will keep him alive and healthy for as long as he wants it to, possibly even longer."

"What does Michael say?"

"He's a bit frightened--but he's a clear thinker, as you know. He's agreed."

"Oh," said Mireia, feeling at a loss. "Okay, I guess." Then something occurred to her that threatened to jog her out of her fragile calm again. The whole room shook and sounded of shifting, tinkling glass for a moment.

"Don't do that," ordered Jareth sternly. "This is one of the best dreams I've ever done. And you don't really want to be tossed on the junk heap with all the other broken dreams and crackpots, do you?"

"No," said Mireia impatiently, whose own problems were far away from junk heaps. "But what about my parents?"

Jareth looked briefly annoyed. "Michael has insisted on having them to the castle to explain. However, if they don't take it well, I've told him I'm going to make them think he's in a school for intelligent children in some small country aboveground. Austria, maybe."

Mireia breathed a little easier. Then another thought occurred to her. "What about visiting? Can I come and see him? Can they come and see him?"

"There are conditions, but yes," said Jareth. "You won't be able to see him for the first four years because he'll be getting bound to the Labyrinth in order to control the disease and become heir to the Goblin throne. After, there are certain times when you may visit."

They were both silent for a moment. Then Mireia fixed him with the firmest stare she could manage while dreaming and drugged.

"This is what you were trying to do from the beginning, isn't it? Get an heir, I mean" Jareth's impassive mask fell back into place and he carefully bent to examine a rose with a slight chip in it.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." His voice was oddly flat, where it was usually full and deep and mocking.

"What do you mean 'manner of speaking'? You got Michael here to be heir. Did you have him bitten, too?"

At this, he straightened, cocked one eyebrow up, and stalked towards her in a few intimidating strides. "Use your head, Mireia. It wasn't your brother who I had in my power for thirteen hours. I never intended to make him anything but a loser in my game."

A few thoughts snapped into place. "I--oh." It came out slightly high pitched. Jareth bent slightly and put his face near hers for maximum intimidation.

"I would have abdicated not to a King, but to a Goblin Queen. Does that appeal?"

"No!" she burst out quickly.

"Oh, ho. And why not?" the intimidation was tinged with amusement.

"I'd have to rule those filthy, annoying, stupid little creatures--and not just that, but have a title for it! Who would want to rule Goblins!" Then she realized what she'd said to whom. She sucked her breath back in as if she could suck the words back in, too.

Jareth, King of Goblins, burst into his first real laughter in years.

"How eloquently you put the thought that has been circling in my head since the beginning."

She slanted him a sideways look. "Though maybe Michael will let me kick one every so often."

Jareth threw back his head and shook with laughter.

Mireia's sobriety was returning in little increments and she stood still observing him. Here in this semi-dream, neither of them was disheveled or dirty--or in her case bloody from Michael--any longer. He was back in true Goblin King style and it disconcerted her. She suddenly felt funny in a way that had nothing to do with a drugged peach and everything to do with the way Jareth's elegant gloved hand held the broken glass rose.

Just then, as if sensing her stare, he turned back to her and met her eyes. A very slow, rather evil smile spread across his face, his pointy teeth making him look just slightly carnivorous.

"Definitely at least four years," he murmured in a low voice. She quickly looked away before she could do something so stupid as flush. "Er--yes. Four years will be a long time not to see Michael." He smiled wider and didn't answer.

"Why do you wear gloves?" she decided to change the subject.

"Also a topic for the future. The dream is fading. If you have any thing else you'd like to say, say it now. As you said--four years is a long time not to see...Michael."

"Then--thank you," said Mireia. Surprise flashed in his eyes. "How else would I have discovered I a sort of magic all along?"

"The same way you discovered how to walk," he replied. Was she imagining it or was everything getting blurry and vague? No, the plants were definitely on the transparent side. Ha ha. "I did nothing," Jareth continued, sounding further away. "But I like the way your gratitude feels, so I'll take it anyway." And then the dream was gone.

Mireia blinked her eyes at the greyish-white in front of them. Fog? She shifted her head. No, it was bedroom wall. Groaning, she shifted upright and found that she'd been sleeping curled up underneath the bedroom window, which was shut fast.

"It was not a dream," she told herself fiercely before that thought could take hold. She'd always wanted to hit Dorothy at that point in the Wizard of OZ. She heard a faint trumpeting in the direction of her mirror and stumbled over to it. She'd already jumped out of her skin before she realized it was only Mooreland staring out at her.

"Michael sent me to tell you hello," he greeted her. "He says not to worry because he's having a lot of fun. And he really is. Specifically, 'the castle is the best maze yet'."

"Thank you, Mooreland." She smiled.

"You're very welcome. Now I'm bound for home. I haven't seen good sand dunes in so long."

Mireia got the hint. "Don't let me keep you," she said. "I'm happy to be home, too." And she was. It would just take a little practice to ignore the small sadness of knowing that Michael would never be here with her again and that their games and pretending and secrets were over. Then she thought about a sort-of promise given to her in a glass jungle dream and felt better.

"I wonder how mom and dad took this?" she said, and went to find out.


End file.
